Awake at night
by Red Vixen
Summary: short parts of stories mostly one shots with no real beginnings. Current entry: The Morning After
1. Of Dreams and Kisses

AN Alright here's the deal, I've become addicted to Teen Titians I can't focus on any other characters at the moment so here is what a lack of sleep and lying awake in the dark came to enjoy…

**_Somehow or other they talked us into this game called KISS (Keep Idiots Sleeping Soundly) no actually that wasn't what happened. According to Raven they actually trapped all of us together in a sort of communal dream world. It's made up of the whole teams dreams and nightmares. It's taken awhile but we've finally reached the end of it now these annoying little pests are going to tell us where the key is hidden…_**

"Alright we've made it through your games now tell us how to get out of here." Robin demanded and the two little fairies giggled and clapped. The one that we knew as Tinka tossed her cotton candy pink pigtails over her shoulders and flashed one of her innocently flirtious smiles at him. Her sister Linklee covered her mouth with her hands while her soft yellow curls bounced around her mischievous blue eyes. Tinka waved on finger in the air back and forth and tsked.

"You didn't say the magic words…" her voice was sing songish and a muscle in Robin's jaw clenched and he took a deep breath then his voice icy let the word slid out through clenched teeth.

"Please…" The two small creatures looked at each other and smiled in a way that made all of us look at them warily. I glanced over at Star who was dressed in a light violet nightgown even she had begun to think we'd never get out of here. I hadn't been there when she played she had been partnered up with Robin. I had been partnered up with Bee while Raven and Beast Boy had been together and looked ready to throttle the two little pixies.

"Wellll…" Linklee looked at Tinka, " since you asked so nicely we'll tell you. The Key is in the Kiss." Everyone stared at them in disbelief

"The key is in the what?" I snapped in disbelief and the two pests giggled.

"You heard us. We don't have the key, it's in the Kiss."

"What Kiss?" Robin asked warily looking at them and their innocent smiles took on less innocent shades.

"Their kiss." they both pointed at Raven and Beast Boy and twin blots of light flew from their hands hitting them centre in the chest. The two teens looked at each other for a moment then leapt back as though the other was plagued.

"No way-" Beast Boy said looking horrified.

"Not a chance-" Raven gave him a dirty look.

"I'm NOT kissing him/her!" they finished together the pixies just shrugged.

"Well that's the only way to get the key." Their smiles were smug and Linklee snapped her fingers and the two titans disappeared.

"Raven!" Robin cried.

"B!" I shouted but it was too late, our world dissolved to blackness leaving the remaining four standing together. The pixies were gone.

"We're doomed," Bee said sitting down with a sigh, "they never wanted us to leave and they just found the way to keep us here forever."

"Why is that? It is just a kiss is it not?" Starfire asked confused by Bee's logic. But Bee and Robin shook their heads.

"Think about it Star. The whole time we've been here they've been putting us through all of our fears and our most embarrassing and humiliating thoughts." Robin told her and we all nodded in agreement.

"Going by that theory I doubt a peck on the cheek is going to work." Bee finished and everyone nodded feeling hopeless.

"Why us?" Beast Boy groaned leaning his head back against the cold rough stone dungeon wall. He sat with one knee drawn up to his chest and he linked his hands around it. He kept his eyes closed and let out a sigh.

"Do you really want an answer to that?" Raven said sitting down beside him closing her eyes against the looming threat.

(time passes)

Beast Boy leaned close to Raven their breath mingled and Raven gave a nervous chuckle.

"You're shaking." He gave a wane smile in return.

"Nerves I guess," he said his voice wavering only the slightest little bit. Raven nodded slightly and hesitantly unsure she leaned a little closer their lips a hair apart now. They both closed their eyes and leaned in, then Raven turned her head away and jerked back.

"I can't do it." she said quickly nerves having overcome her. Beast Boy groaned and leaned back against the wall in frustration. Raven quickly went defensive and glared at him. "Well it's easier for you you've at least kissed someone before!" she suddenly clapped a hand over her mouth and her eyes went wide in shock as she realised what she had said. Beast Boy turned to her in surprise.

"You've never kissed before?" Raven leapt up and walked away from him.

"I didn't say that." she said sharply keeping her back to him. Beast Boy looked at her then stood up as well.

"That's what you implied." he told her and she flinched away mortified that she had said what she had.

"Well it's not like I have guys lined up round the block." she muttered, "gezz Beast Boy, the one boyfriendish person I had turned out to be a evil dragon alright! God…" she breathed and Beast Boy walked up beside her and this time she didn't flinch or pull away from the comfort he offered as he wrapped his arms around her awkwardly, instead she leaned into it needing the comfort even while the rest of her tried to pull her away.

"Well it's not as though I do it everyday either Rae," he said softly his breath tickling her ear. "Now if this was Robin and Star they'd probably be half naked by now." Raven let out a weak chuckle and the green teen wrapped his arms tighter around her hearing the slight edge of hysteria in her voice. Unconsciously he rubbed her back and both of them were so wrapped up in their own thoughts that the way Raven buried her face in his neck or the way her hands went around him clinging to him like a life line went unnoticed. They stood in the centre of the room for a long while in the same position till Raven felt the hysteria pushed away and Beast Boy felt her racing pulse slow.

"So, it's just one kiss right." Raven nodded her eyes still closed her head still resting on his shoulder. "Well that can't really be the problem right? I mean people kiss all the time." Raven nodded again and Best Boy continued to look over her shoulder. "So then where do we run into the problem?"

"I think I hit a wall at the tongue." Raven muttered and she felt his body shake slightly at a laugh he kept inside.

"Well I can tell you that while I've kissed a girl before I'm not expert on that either." He ran a hand down her back and whispered softly. "What are you scared of Rae? I'm not going to hurt you and I doubt that it'll mean anything to you." he said softly and Raven pulled away from him reluctantly and sat back down against their wall.

"I don't know Beast Boy, I-I, I just don't think that a kiss should mean nothing. It always means something to someone."

"Not always Rae," he told her sitting down next to her again. "It doesn't always have to mean something."

"I'm scared alright!" She snarled at him hating having to admit it. His emerald eyes looked at her with a deep patience, and hidden in their depths she saw a knowledge that was far older then either of them.  
"Then you kiss me Rae, then it'll be your choice." Raven arched an eyebrow determined to avoid it.

"It's not my choice Beast Boy, it'll never be my choice, we're forced into the situation so there really isn't any choice."

"Then take some control over it Rae, take what control is offered to you." she looked at him wondering when he got to be so wise.

"I don't know how to kiss…" she trailed off her last argument beast Boy sighed and she closed her eyes and hung her head.

"It's a dream Rae, none of this is real. Haven't you ever kissed someone in a dream before?" he asked her and she shook her head.

"No, not that I can remember." she paused as a thought occurred to her, "Wait everything in this world is taken from one of our dreams right? So whose dream are me and you kissing from?"

"Maybe it isn't necessarily me and you maybe it's Robin or Starfire's dream." he said but the answer didn't ring true. Raven opened her eyes and turned to him.

"Try again B. This dungeon is from my dreams, this dress is from someone else's." she said and unwillingly Beast Boy felt his eyes drop to the dress she wore. The fabric was the clue of her cape and designs were sown onto it in black thread. It hung off every curve she had in an incredibly seductive way that seemed vaguely familiar.

"That isn't from a dream…" Beast boy said softly staring at the dress, "it's from a memory…"

"A memory? Yours?"

"Yeah… I sort of remember seeing it when I was little," his eyes had unfocused and were staring into the past now, "my dad had it in his office it was a newspaper clipping, of, him and my mother at some sort of party. A, fundraiser of some kind or other." he struggled but the more he saw of the memory the further away it drifted. "That's all."

"Did you ever kiss someone in your dreams?" Raven asked and Beast boy looked at her.

"Not usually. The forest that we ran through remember, that was from my dreams. But it's a guy thing they usually do see and kiss girls in their sleep."

"Male hormones, did you ever kiss me?" Beast boy thought for a moment.

"Do you really want an answer to that?" he asked and Raven looked at him and crossed her arms over her breasts.

"Did you?"

"err, no…" he answered thinking back to the dream, nope they'd donesomething else but he didn't specifically remember kissing her…

"Then why was I in your dream?" she demanded. Beast Boy felt a sweat drop roll down his back.

"Kiss me and I'll tell you." he said then slapped himself mentally this was how he usually got in trouble with Raven.

"No." was her silted reply.

"Fine then I don't have to tell you." He flopped onto his back and closed his eyes this was hopeless they wouldn't ever get out of here.

I glared at him frustrated and mad at myself for a moment I had let my curiosity slip and now it was seething and whispering for me to kiss him so he'd tell me. I remembered the smug look on his face when he had said "Fine then I don't have to tell you." Bastered! I snarled in my thoughts and felt a reckless urge rise up he wanted a kiss then he was damn well going to tell me. I crawled over to him his face was relaxed and it was the last straw. If he was so unconcerned about this mess then I was going to damn well make him uncomfortable. I leaned over him and his eyes snapped open in surprise as my hair brushed over his face.

"So you've never kissed me in your dreams." I said feeling a strong emotion, Jealousy? Run through my thoughts.

"No-" he said but I brought my mouth down on his silencing him.

It wasn't innocent, and it wasn't gentle it was more of a so-there sort of kiss. It wasn't what I had anticipated, his lips were soft and warm against mine and there was a taste there that I couldn't identify, and a scent that was there and gone in an instant. Whatever they were they made me want and I raised my head in denial.

His eyes were half closed and his breath was fast, like mine I belatedly noticed.

"So tell me why I was in your dream?" I demanded when suddenly he rolled over trapping me under him, I felt something hard press against my hip as one of his legs pressed between mine. His lips found mine and this time they weren't gentle and exploring anymore, now they were demanding. Knowing what they wanted and rough to find it. I bet his lip and he chuckled shifting his angle his tongue slipping between my teeth coaxingly soft and gentle, the panic I felt vanished and something else took it's place, a hunger that scared me even as it thrilled through my body. As though he sensed the confusion of my thoughts his lips gentled and the hands on my sides left braceing themselves on either side of my head easing some of his weight off my body but it wasn't needed anymore, and belatedly I realised I wanted it back, wanted his mouth to demand some more his hands rough not gentle I wanted…

_… "Raven" I breathed against her lips, they parted for me on a shaky sigh and I felt the tension leave the body under mine I struggled and managed to get control of myself gentling the kiss letting it deepen on it's own. She shifted under me restless wanting more and the sinuous feel of her under me began to push me towards the edge again but I held on, this was Raven, and all I would do was show her a kiss. Her scent was subtle, lavender and twilight… "Mine," I whispered against her lips lifting my head for only a second. "Yours" she echoed, "yours…" _

I opened my eyes and shifted against the cold stone, that was something I couldn't understand was how we could fall asleep and dream when we were already asleep and dreaming. Beast Boy hadn't moved and laid on his back his breath deep and even, I felt my face flush suddenly as I remembered what I had just dreamed of. Okay so now I had kissed a guy in my dreams. Was it anything like that in reality? Was it that terrifying and freeing? I was to scared to find out. But at the same time watching Beast Boy lay there and hearing the simple sound of his breathing seemed to somehow calm me.

He was nervous to I thought remembering how after we had stopped snarling and snapping at each other and cringing at the thought kissing the other that we had tried to find ways to make it seem like no big deal, how we had tried to but always one of us had pulled back. How disappointed we both felt when we finally got up the nerve and did a quick peck on the mouth barely even a kiss at all and were hit with the full knowledge of just what kind of kiss was needed. The hand he had brushed through his hair after making a lame joke about it had shook and so had he the last time we tried. We were both nervous so did that make my fears any worse then his, did my insecurities wrap me in more chains then any of his own? He shifted to his side and whispered something to soft for me to understand interrupting my thoughts. I took a deep breath and made up my mind. Here went nothing, here went everything.

His eyes snapped open as I tapped him on the shoulder my hand nervously shaking.

"So you never kissed me in your dreams." I asked him and his eyes focused on me for a moment and he shook his head trying to clear the rest of the sleep out of his thoughts as he sat up.

"Now I have." he said simply and I looked at him and then I laughed and laid my head on his shoulder. He put an arm around me and said softly.

"What?"

"You just dreamed of kissing me." I told him and he chuckled softly a little nervously.

"I did. But Rae tha-" I pressed a finger to his lips cutting him off.

"I just dreamed of kissing you to want to give it on last try?" I asked him he looked at me then laughed for a moment as well.

"Well since your asking why don't we see if a dreams dream holds up against a plain dream?" I laughed at his attempt at humour. We looked at each other suddenly quiet feeling the familiar pitch and roll in our stomachs then hesitantly we leaned towards each other. Our noses bumped and we paused and both of us gave a nervous laugh, we looked at each other for a moment then I closed my eyes and hesitantly our lips touched. It was my dream again but it was nothing like it either.

His lips were warm and soft, but at the same time hesitant, unsure like my own of exactly what they were allowed to do. His arms went around me drawing me closer and I felt him draw back and opened my eyes. His were dark and curious and I smiled and put a hand behind his head and pulled him down whispering, "We haven't found that key yet."

"We haven't found that key yet," she whispered softly taunting me I felt like I was drifting, this was the real dream it wasn't real but I could feel her in my arms and her scent swirled through my head drawing me closer to the temptress smile that had slid onto her lips, I could hear the pulse within her and it was a dream the fooled even my enhanced senses so be it. I dropped my lips to hers and let the kiss linger this time then softly gently I parted her mouth as her breathing increased and slipped my tongue into the virgin territory of her mouth. She started for a second stiffening then she relaxed and allowed it, willed it even suddenly I felt something hard and cold on my tongue and we both stopped in surprise and drew back. She opened her mouth and put a figure on her tongue and pulled out the small silver key. Then she laughed.

"The Key was in the Kiss." she whispered and we both cracked up.

I walked into the common room the next morning to find that everybody else was up as well. Robin sat at the table and cyborg and Starfire were fighting over the remote. Raven glanced up from her book when I came in and looked at me for a moment her eyes shuttered from me.

"Hey Beast Boy we were wondering if we were going to have to wake you up or not." Robin said and I shrugged.

"Guys I never get up much before noon you know that." I told them and flopped onto the couch.

"So did you two… You know." Cyborg asked me his eyes eager. I just looked at him.

"It was a dream Cy. It was all a dream." though I had woken up to the smell of lavender and twilight on the bead beside me that morning.

"Well you know I was just curious." he said defensively. I shook my head.

"I'm gonna go shower." I told them and left the common room. After I turned the corner of the hallway I ran face first into Raven.

"Morning Beast Boy."

"Errr, Morning Rae." I told her as she shifted till I was boxed in.

"Remember what you said about it all being a dream and how we'd see how a dreams dream compared to a plain dream." she asked I looked at her not sure I liked the light in her eyes.

"Yeah I remember that."

"How about we compare Dreams to reality?" I looked at her then laughed and she backed off hurt rising in her eyes but I caught her arm and pulled her back to me.

"Rae, Block the camera and we'll see." she smiled and our lips touched.

"No, no,no,no,no,noooo!" Cyborg said as Robin and him watched the security footage and a large bird blocked the lens. "Jezz this sucks first we miss it the first time now we miss this." the two teens looked at each other.

"Bet I can beat your record." Robin said holding up a controller.

"Your on!" cyborg said taking up the challenge.


	2. Goodbye

DISCLAIMER: I don't own the Titans but the plot and the woman in the story is mine.

A.N. I hope you like this I'm not to sure on the last 2 paragraphs but I thought they helped a little bit. Let me know!

P.s. I apologise to the fan fiction site for not putting a disclaimer on my first chapter. I didn't notice it till after it was uploaded. (opps!)

The man leaned against the cement block wall, his thoughts closed off from the rest of the world by a simple piece of fabric over his eyes. He had switched his customary outfit for something more low-key, a fancy get up wasn't going to impress the person he had come today his sources had told him. So he had opted for a worn pair of jeans and a black turtleneck under a leather jacket. His hair was gelled into a bad boy beadhead as it had been years before as a teen. His hands were in his pockets and his gaze on the cold floor unseeing when the barred door before him slid open with a nerve jangling sound. He looked upa as the prison warden entered.

His temples were silver but the rest of his hair still clung to a rich brown. His eyes were bright in a face who's lines spoke more of having seen to much violence rather then years. He had a military bearing and he focused on the man against the wall.

"You're here to see him than?" the warden asked, he had been and still was a mentor to the younger man, and the six words speak as the conclusion of a long conversation. The younger man nods his look now guarded both from his mentors expected critisizm and from what is yet to come. The older man merely nods his head and leads him to a different door on the other wall towards the isolation cells. The expected critisism is nowhere to be found.

Without a sound the solid steel door slid open at the access code he entered and the stepped into the darkened gloom. The lights sitting on the walls struggled to fend off the darkness but this was the oldest part of the building made back in a time when the public gallows were only a floor above. The doors were solid steel here and the inch thick rivets had convinced even the stobbornest criminals not to try and mess with them. Their footsteps echoed to loud in the shadow shourded ceiling hidden above them. This was the realm of secrets nad sorrow and there was something about the ominous way that the old building held court that made both men remain silent and try to conceal winces at the sound of their own footsteps. Finally they stopped before a door in the darkest corner of the building and the warden swiped a card through the slot next to the door which slid back to reveal the customary barred doors of the original cells. Laying in the far corner on the far corner of the steel bunk the occupant glanced over but the shadows hid his features and his eyes were unreadable.

"You've got company Logan." the warden and the occupant didn't reply, his only response was to draw farther into the shadows watching them both warily. "You've got ten minuets." the warden said swinging open the door and allowing the visitor in lockign the door behind him then starting back down the corridor.

When his footsteps had faded neither the visitor or the prisinor had moved both just looked at each other assessing, the visitor was the first to speak.

"Why did you do it?" His voice was deep but there was a hidden plea in it and the occupant shrugged, and waved a hand as though it was unimportant. "Damn it! Why did you do it?" the man said and his expression isn't shuttered anymore now anger, hurt and betrayal are revealed.

"Well if it isn't the fearless leader come to save me from my sins." the occupant says caulously ignoring the anger of the "fearless leader" and the question as well. Rising his leans against the wall completely swallowed by the shadows save for the strange way his eyes seemed to collect the faint light of the room and reflect it back.

"I just want to know why," the man says, a flash of white teeth was visible as the man gave an ironic smile.

"Why? I never got to ask you that question either. It was you who kicked me out remember? You didn't need me anymore, six were too many for the team as I recall. The weak had to be weeded out. That I could understand, but to throw me right out of the city, to forbid me to return. That didn't make sense. I wasn't a threat to you, oh great one. Yet still I was thrown out of the only city in the world that would accept me as I was. What was I to do?" he said softly his voice deeper then the last time the two of them talked. The past hung heavy between them, both the camaraderie and the faint strains of an anger that has simmered for too long to truly re-ignite.

"You could have gone anywhere, or done anything. I offered to help you. You could have found a new home, I had to follow protocol, you knew our secrets and therefore you were a threat." the man in the shadows rolled his eyes.

"Yes I was going to sell the secret of how to defeat you to the first person who asked. **_I_**, wasn't a threat, **_I_**, was a friend. You four were my family, that hurt but what hurt worse was the way you never said goodbye. I was just taken one morning to the city limits and dumped like an abandoned puppy." he gave a derisive snort, "Yes I had all the help in the world at my disposal but what good is it when your chased out of every town. When you have to constantly be on guard because some "normal person" is just waiting for an excuse to pump a clip into your back."

"You could have shown then you didn't mean any harm. You could ha-" the man in the shadows cut him off. He could see right through his visitors' weak attempts to make his own guilt feel lighter.

"You know what I look like, where in the world can I go where I could blend in. The answer is nowhere. I simply did what I had to do to survive. These people here have no hold on me and neither do you. In two days max my people will have talked to them and the charges will be shown for the bullshit they are then, I'll be gone, free again. Even if they don't there's no prison in this world hat can hold me, I'll leave and never be heard of again whatever the outcome. You've made it perfectly clear that I'm to have nothing to do with you so I don't have to report to you anymore." there was a no defiance in this statement, a faint brush of bitter acceptance but other then that it was just two strangers talking.

"Are you trying to blame this on me?" the man asked and was given a bitter laugh in response.

"I'm over blaming you, I could see your fault then and I can see it now. You see the world in right or wrong. I was a suspect in a crime as such I was a strike against the team. It made sense to dump me, a convenient excuse to switch me for someone else. I'm over that, honest. All that's left between us are fond memories." his eyes flicked over the mans shoulder as the doors slid open, again there was that wry smile. "I was a child when you abandoned me, I've learned that it's better to be a lone wolf, that way, you can suspect everyone and when they prove to be trustworthy you can have a pleasant surprise." the visitor looked behind him as two people entered. One was the warden and the other was a tall woman, her sapphire hair was pulled into a ponytail and she gave him a cool look.

"Mr. Logan, you have our deepest apologies for holding you here." the man said and the visitor looked at him in surprise. "The true culprit was arrested by the police an hour ago and the papers for your release have just arrived." the prisoner gave a flash of his white teeth.

"I'm glad that the law was able to find the true criminal." Slowly he exited the shadows it took a conscious effort for the man who had come to see him to keep his face smooth and not take a step back. Still not overly tall, he looked as though someone had compressed the six four frame of a top athlete to 5' 10 or less and his broad shoulders pressed against the seams of his shirt and revealed the play of muscles under them. His face was different, the mouth not quite so wide and the eyes no longer innocent. Now the eyes were sharper, more the eyes of an alpha wolf then the gentle eyes that shone out of the visitors memory. His hair was longer, hanging in a shag that hid his sharply pointed ears but his entire body was still a deep green, darker now with age. He stopped when he was face to face with the man. "It was nice to meet you again Robin, this time good-bye will be for far longer." he said, and Robin noticed the gold sliver in his left eye as he looked over at the woman.

"It was an interesting meeting as well Beast Boy." Robin replied to the green mans retreating back as he left with the woman, she talking softly to him.

"Well how did it go?" the warden asked and the man shrugged.

"Time's changed him, but I think I killed him first." the man nodded.

"Betrayal is hard on a soul. Especially for ones such as you two." The visitor glanced at him. "You never told him that the Titans disbanded after he left did you?" the younger man looked away from his mentors' eyes.

"It's never as easy as you think it's going to be, we've both changed." the man nodded and they left the cell it's door locking behind them ominously. A door shutting on the chance to fix the past, the future possibilities that this meeting had represented shut out as well. As the shadows swallowed the man as he headed out of the high security prison.

* * *

Wind whistled past the vents of the red helmet as the motorbike spend down the highway, the driver looked through the tinted visor but only faintly saw the landscape around him, he was back ten years in the past turning this very bike around and speeding back to the hurt figure walking away, young body stiff with hurt and the lonely road stretching out before him. His home and friends behind…

"Tears my son?" a woman said and gently touched the trails down his cheeks. He blinked rapidly and turned to look out the window of the small plane carrying him across the ocean, below he thought he saw a red motorbike streak along but he couldn't be sure. He let out a sigh then turned to the woman. Her skin was a dark brown and her eyes the life of the plants. She was the world, a true goddess the one who had saved him as a child and he let out a breath. He was leaving one family and returning to the one where he never had to fear being abandoned again. He laid his head on her shoulder and sobbed for the unfairness of it. She held him knowing that there was no way for her to truly heal the wounds that had been broken open…

A.N. Thanx to the people who reviewed my last chapter. I love reviews, but I get so few of them. Please continue the habit. Feel free to offer ideas if you want I'm open to anything. I LOVE you! Consider this one dedicated to you. I'll keep writing as long as I keep getting reviews. Over and out! (Salute)

P.S. My aplologies for taking so long I had this story written like two days after the first one got reviewed (excited little dance about the reviews) but school's begun and everything fell on me at once so quick review this and I'll update again.!


	3. My Secret Identity

Disclaimer: I don't' own the Teen Titans if I did well, I don't know where I'd be but I'd be filthy stinkin' rich!

A.N. All right I apologise for not updating faster but can someone please review in one way or another for better or worse my last chapter. I mean 1 review is that too much to ask of you people! grrr!

Alright I'm done now enjoy this new chapter.

****

My Secret Identity

My name is my own the world knows me as Beast Boy. I am the fifth member of the Teen Titans. I am known as the joker and the clown, the one who always has a joke or prank ready. Sometimes funny sometimes not quite so much. I am even fairly well known for my easy smile, boundless energy and what I think, are pretty good one liners. I am more then that though. I am more then either my teammates or the public will ever know. I have a past and a history that is my personal secret and I like to keep it that way. There are many things that no one here can ever understand and I guess that's why I will never try to explain them. I have learned that some things are simply better to be and leave it at that…

"Guy this isn't cool" I muttered and splashed my face with cold water as I continued with my reflection in the mirror. "Keep it together man we've only got twelve hours to go." In the mirror the features tightened and I gripped the cool porcelain of the sink fighting the change as my DNA struggled against the confines I had placed on it. "Deep breaths dude, deep breaths." I muttered and shoved my head in the water trying to calm the fire spiking my blood. I pulled my face out and shook the water out of my hair; to my dismay the image in the mirror had changed. The emerald tresses, which I kept cut short, had shifted as my DNA battled for freedom and reverted back to its normal form out of the half shift I held myself in. They now hung in a shag around my around my face and their texture was human and streaked through them like fresh blood as my natural hair colour. I sighed and rested my forehead against the glass, this wasn't my day. My forced self-denial was nearing an end and my on sub-conscious was in a state of mutiny.

"Come on, hold on; just a little longer. Don't want to lost the bet," I said through clenched teeth as I winced in bone deep pain as my DNA struggled again, "Come one, come on hold on." Suddenly a bong on the door to my room made me jump and turn to face it. I was in the attached bathroom in my room at I used twice a year if that. Usually you couldn't even see the door with all the junk I had piled up in my room but I'd managed to clear a trail to it. I looked now at the door of my room that I'd locked the night before right after Robin had approved my two days of leave. I was 12 hours into it and someone was at my door already. I grabbed a black toque and pulled it down covering my hair. I waited to see if whoever it was would knock again, feigning the silence of sleep. They did. I walked out of the bathroom and went up to the door, fixed a half asleep expression on my face since I wasn't usually up till noon and it was only a few hours after dawn.

"Beast Boy, wake up, we've got a situation here." Taking a deep silent breath I pinned my rebellious genes and opened the door. Cyborg was standing there in all his chromatic splendour; his usually smiling face was grave and even his red digital eye lack the usual humour.

"Dude its like 1 in the morning." I groaned raising my voice to the higher octave they all assumed it was. Cyborg sighed and I could tell he was mentally wishing I'd grow up.

"BB it's 7am you've had plenty of sleep and we've got a problem." I looked at him and let out a yawn.

"Wha(yawn)t is it? Invading space aliens, the end of the world, slade returned from the dead again?" I asked he let a smile twitch on his lips before he pulled them back into a frown. That was the problem with these guys when things got on, they tended to get focused on the moment and couldn't take a step back and look at it in perspective from the big picture. That's why no matter how many times the other insulted me or snapped at me or Raven threatened me I kept up the cheery comic relief act, simply because they needed it. A lame joke to break the tension or a prank to help put a ego back to bearable size. I couldn't be mature due to the simple fact that these guys tended to forget that they were kids. But not today, today was my chance to drop the character and be simply myself.

"Well it's an unusual mission." Cyborg said and he began to explain the new villain that had just appeared. I nodded and waited till he was finished before I dropped he atom bomb. "So what do you think man?" I looked at him for a moment then shrugged, bombs away.

"Dude have a blast and let me know how it turns out." I said and pushed the button to shut the door but Cyborg stopped it.

"What do you mean tell you about it?" he asked I gave him a blank look.

"As of like seven last night, I'm on a two day vacation. My ride doesn't get here till later so I'm having a bit of extra sleep. Nite man." I said a shut the door in Cy's stunned face locking it for god measure. Then my DNA wrestled free for a moment and I felt my entire muscle structure shift. I shrugged my shoulders testing the new strength and feel of it then I let a sigh out as I realised that the uniform was stretched nearly to its limit. I walked over to my closet and dug around through the chaos till I found my bag.

It was ancient with rips and tears that had been crudely and often callously stitched with old bits of wire and string. I had hid it under the loose tile in my room. I had built the little hollow under it in secret and it wasn't on any of the tower blueprints. I had built it just big enough to fit my two prize positions, this bag and an abused cardboard box. The box held all that remained of my parents positions as well as my their notes, blue prints and formulas. I guarded it zealously refusing help to clean my room on the rare occasion that even I gave into the need to clean it, but it was the contents of the bag I was after today. I sat on a clear spot on the floor and rummaged around in it till my fingers touched the midnight fabric. Reverently I pulled it out and ran those same fingers gently over it.

It wasn't much really, just an old black bunny-hug with some Celtic designs done in silver around the triceps of each sleeve. But as my fingers slid over them memories of someone I'll never truly forget but manage not to consciously think about rushed over me…

**_flashback_**

_"Yo Shifty!" a voice called out from behind me. I didn't reply just moved over on the ledge so there was room for her too. "You're a hard guy to follow brother," she said as she flopped down beside me. _

"I don't want to leave." I told her looking at the wilderness below us. She was silent for a moment then she drew me in with her words and an arm compaionlly around my shoulder.

"I don't want you to leave either, but there's more to life then this." she made an elegant motion with her arm that seemed to mean everything. "You finally have the chance to get out of this cycle man. You've been given a chance." she looked out at me her grey eyes dark with emotions that I knew I'd never be able to truly feel. Not the way she felt them, her's were ancient, powerful, deep. There were times I'd didn't think I'd ever be able to feel anything close to the same. The wind picked up and whipped her hair around us. Her molten fire, blood red hair. That's what really stands out clearest. Her red hair, it was so uniquely hers, yet it reminded me of what felt like a past life, though it had only been eight years ago. I looked back down at the note that held the life changing choice in a rough scrawl.

"Will they take me?" I asked feeling old insecurities rise, she came me a smile.

"If they don't you can always come back," she pulled off her sweater and dropped it on my lap. "You're a child of eternity, we'll never turn you away." I trailed my finger of the silver designs…

There was another bang on the door and I pulled my blankets over my head with a snarl. It was noon and I only had to wait for sun down, who was it now?

"Beast Boy? Friend are you there? It is I Starfire I wish to converse with you." An innocent feminine voice spoke. I sighed and buried my face into my pillow. Why did it have to be Star? I muttered a few choice curses into the pillow but she knocked again. Why did it have to be the one person who could read me so well? Starfire was so in tune with her own emotions that she was adapt at reading others as well, which wasn't necciarily a good thing when your "emotions" weren't the sort meant to be shared. Right no I was going to have to pull the act of a lifetime, maybe when I was done being a superhero Id think about an acting career. That fantasy had to wait because Star was still waiting at the door. I dragged my aching butt out of bed and focused for a moment making sure that I was in control of my own DNA. It stirred but other then that held still. I took a deep breath and opened the door.

"Oh friend I have missed you!" she exclaimed as the door slid open and she grabbed me in one of her trademark back cracking hugs. This was the reason no Titan ever went to the chiropractor; Star did such a good job of it.

"It's only been a few hours Star." I gasped and the Tammarian let me go.

"But you have been in your room all day much like friend Raven usually is. Robin didn't even come to get you for training; he said you were "leave". Why did you not come to say farewell to us?" she asked and I sighed inside. Star had a way of making you feel like a sleaze even when you hadn't done anything.

"Star I haven't left yet." I told her and a look of confusion slid onto her face.

"Then why would friend Robin say that you were gone?" she asked her expression prettily confused.

"What I'm on is a sort of vacation." I explained wincing as I slid out of character slightly but Star didn't seem to notice.

"Oh, well that does make the sense now that you're said that. Where are you going on your "vacation"?" she asked and I smiled as I thought about it.

"To see some people I haven't seen in a long time," I felt my thoughts beginning to pull back into those times, "a very long time." I murmured and shut the door. Missing the puzzled look Starfire gave me.

**_flashback_**

_"Hey who's up for a swim? Dixon yelled up the stairs. I was sprawled on a giant, ugly beast of a couch, that when you closed your eyes felt like you were sleeping in heaven. It might have been too big and ugly but it was comfortable as sin. It was a couch made for napping not looks. _

"I am!" Melody answered coming down the stairs holding tightly to Destiny's small pale hand. The child's eyes were far away and I knew that she was caught up in her powers, dancing through space and time as though it was hers to play with. Melody tossed her black curls and sent a flirty smile to Dixon. "I'm ready whenever you are hot stuff." Melody and Dixon had been going out since I'd first met them years ago and this was a part of the game that they both enjoyed. Dixon smiled and whatever pickup line he was about to reply with was denied as the others entered.

"Hope you two love birds weren't thinking of leavening without us." Ryann said walking into the room silent as a stalking tiger. Ryann pronounced Ryan the last n silent. It was a fact worth your life to remember, she'd done bodily harm to people who ignored it. I stretched out on the couch then sat up as Fauve leapt at me. The two girls could have been sisters, their features were so similar but there was a three million year gap in their ages. Fauve could control the element fire but her powers were nothing, heck anyone's except perhaps Destinies were nothing compared to Ryann's.

"Ryann was different, Ryann was forever. She claimed not to know how old she was all she would say was that she'd been old when the Egyptians had started building their pyramids. Of course Ryann was immortal but only through a side effect of her powers. She lived in all times and it was her ability to control time is what gave her both her unnatural speed and an extra bonus. Sort of like, oh what's that girl in the movie… Elektra, that's it. She sort of manipulated time like that. Not very many people would believe her if she told them but then you don't have a choice to after you've seen her powers in action. I've seen them in action. I'd known her since the creeps who'd kidnapped me after my parents' death. We have a connection us two. She says it's because we've both been given a lifespan that's far longer then usual. Hers has stretched into millions of years while I'm just starting mine, we're suspicious it will last for hundreds. After all, Great White sharks don't mature until their 50 years old and some sea turtles are known to be well into their hundreds and still going strong. Which led the two of us to the conclusion that baring something killing me we'll be together for a long, long time.-

"Beast Boy I know you're in there so open the door before I do it for you." she growled, well growled isn't the right word, because you see, Raven doesn't growl. I looked at the door tempted to wait and see if she would break it down. That she could there isn't a doubt but I'm not sure certain that she would. Raven keeps her room locked to the world and the only one who dares to invade it or challenge it is me. So balancing her respect for locked doors against that, odds are she probably wouldn't mind returning the favour.

"Gimme a minuet." I shout back at her and do a quick glance at the mirror.

It had taken all day but the battle with my mutinous DNA was at a stalemate. I couldn't undo that changes it had already rote, nor could it got loose long enough to do some more changes. I'd changed out of my uniform into the same sort of things I'd worn before I'd joined the Titans plus the toque hiding my hair. A pair of torn and well broken in jeans, a black underarmour shirt (A.N. you know the kind that foot ball players wear), and other that was the black sweater. I shrugged; yep this was definitely not Beast Boy. My gaze strayed to the glowing numbers of the clock. 5:30, sundown, almost show time. I smirked revealing canines slightly larger then normal, even for me. I snagged a pair of mirrored sunglasses off a pile of junk by the door and wrapped the slender beaded chain with the polished wooden ring on it around my wrist.

Raven raised her hands eye glowing white, "Azerath Mentrion Zin-" the door slid open to reveal a green skinned stranger. Raven blinked for a moment in surprise and her powers blinked off as her control slipped only that tiny little bit. "New look/" she asked and I shook my head.

"Nope just cleaning out my closet." I let my eyes slide down her curvy form in the black leotard then flipped them back up to her face. Raven was the one I couldn't understand; even a brief glimpse into her mind hadn't helped. All I really had concrete about her was that in most ways she needed my more then the others, and though I refused to admit it, I probably would do anything for her. To bad I couldn't figure out why.

"What? Dude am I like naked or something? Why are you looking at me like that?" I asked and Raven lowered her slender, elegant brows and sent me a glare that would have frozen gas.

"Robin sent me to get you, he wants to talk to you." I nodded.

"Yeah sure just let me grab something first." Agreed and snagged my bright yellow titans belt off the floor where I'd dropped it last night. I draped it over my shoulder and we started down the hallway Raven levitating beside me. My nose twitched as the frost that hung threatening in the air outside reached through ha open window to taunt me.

**_flashback_**

_The burning pier floated out to the middle of the pool blazing like a bon fire and tears openly ran down our cheeks. There were a few muffled booms from it as the three bottles of wine I'd sent to the deep with Dixon exploded. There were just the three of us now, four it you counted Destiny but she wasn't really alive. Melody clung to me and Dixon's body burned to ashes. Four times we'd come her and each time it was to say good-bye. Ryann sat on the bank watching the pier burn and the firelight revealed the tear tracks down her face like molten gold. Destiny sat silently her expression sat but she wasn't losing Dixon, not like we were. She'd made a special sort of reality, where the souls of all our friends, the rest of the Children of Eternity, waited. Each of them continuing to do what they had always loved to do. They all had a special place where they could sit and watch what was happening here even though they would never be able to return. It was where Destiny lived and it was where she had escorted Dixon's soul when he died. So eventually we would all be able to meet again. Destiny could even allow them a few brief moments here with us from time to time. Until we died ourselves though they were for all purposes as as the dead were to the living. _

Melody wiped her eyes and gently put one hand to her swollen belly, the fire had burned down to only the final flickers. She gave a watery smile as the baby kicked. She had a piece of Dixion to carry with her forever. She looked around at us and our shared silence was all that we needed to ever say. She took Destiny's hand and the small girl used her powers to take them both home. I sat down next to Ryann and we huddled closer together taking comfort in the physical contact.

The sun had set and even the smoke of the pier was gone before we broke the silence.

"This is good-bye Shifty." Ryann's voice was sad and resigned but the declaration held no room for argument.

"You're leaving?" I asked her. Ryann may have been immortal but her soul and emotions were all to human. She took death hard, not all death, just the death of those she cared for. Ryann looked up at the moon as she spoke the next lines.

"I need to sleep for awhile, to step back from the now into time and give myself some distance. You've got the Titans now and Melody will have the baby in a few weeks. Life rolls on and it's time I stepped back." I looked down at the black waters of the pond, feeling abandoned and miserable. She ruffled my hair. "Don't be so sad Shifty. The Children of Eternity are never truly separated or gone. We'll go and have a final hunt tonight then you'll return to Jump City and I'll crawl into bed. When the first frosts fall on my mountain I'll pick you up and we'll hunt together again." I looked at her.

"Time's different on your Mountain Ryann. It'll be four years till the frosts come." I told her looking at my hands, my thought s far distant; imaging the long period of denial I'd have to enter. I could hunt by myself of course but I needed someone with me to make sure I didn't hurt anyone if I got carried away. I thought of the sweet hot blood and the thrill of the chase, the anticipation of the stalk, I felt the fire leap in my blood at the thought of it. "I don't know if I can hold out against myself that long." she looked at the moon again and her silver eyes glimmered then she blinked and banished the tears from them.

"Bet?" she asked and I looked up at her, I could almost read her thoughts from her eyes and sighed.

"We hunt tonight then when the first frosts fall on your mountain we hunt again." I held out my hand, "If I win and go without the blood and the flesh for that time you hunt with me as a wolf." she took my hand and finished.

"If you cave, then you hunt the first one alone and become my slave for two weeks." I felt a smile slip through my misery onto my lips, as I nodded. She rose to her feet and pulled my up. "Come on then Brother. Let's make this a hunt to remember."

I walked into the common room behind Raven. Robin looked up at me as I entered and the eye slits of his mask narrowed, as did his gaze. Cyborg looked up from whatever he was adjusting on the computers in the corner and Starfire looked up from the great bubbling pot of goo she was stirring. I dropped down across the table from Robin and Raven went over to her usual corner and took out a book.

"You wanted to see me?" I asked him and Robin leaned back in his chair.

"Are you alright B? You look different." he said I gave a grin. Robin was someone I respected but for the same reasons I respected him also made it almost impossible for us to be as close as the others. The interrogation he'd given me when I'd transformed into the Beast had nearly shattered what little bond that we'd had. I knew in a few years things between us would come to a head but not tonight. Tonight I wouldn't challenge his position as leader; I sure didn't want it anyway.

"Dude you just missed me admit it." I said sliding easily into the team joker they knew me as. Robin's lips twitched but other then that and a relaxing around his eyes his expression stayed the same.

"Actually, not really, but I did want to ask you one last time where are you going?" I met his eyes through the mask, knew the rest of the team was holding their breath. I dropped the bright yellow belt across the table between us and in the same motion slipped the mirrored sunglasses over my eyes.

"Out." I paused for a moment then let an eager smile slip onto my face. "The frosts just settled." I rose the inclined my head to the belt. "Watch that for me Dudes, I'll be back the day after tomorrow." then with that I waved farewell to the others and left. Once I was out of sight I ran for the roof like the hounds of hell were chasing me and ignored Robin's muttered command. "Follow him…"

The night air was cold and crisp against my skin. The ragged pair of fingerless cloth gloves I had pulled on weren't designed for warmth, but then I wasn't cold either. The fire was beginning to stir in my veins and I couldn't have been cold if I'd lied. The others had followed me onto the roof but I ignored them. I faced into the wind, faced the moonrise all my senses straining to detect the one I knew was coming. Suddenly the breeze shifted and I knew. I turned around slowly, willing my racing heart to slow.

"B there's no one up here." Cyborg said and before I could answer him someone else spoke.

"Shifty you made it!" she said and her voice was the sweetest most beautiful song I'd ever heard.

"You took your time. The frosts settled an hour ago" I could see he lounging on the diving board above the pool. The others looked around but her powers hid her from their view. She tossed her hair and laughed, something about her brought back lyrics from a song I'd heard a long time ago… **_No one ever left me out in the rain, cold words still remain unspoken, I've never been lost, spent years in the dark, You're here now my hearts un broken._**

"Ya gotta give a girl time to travel you know." she jumped off the diving board onto the ground. The moonlight struck her and her powers created a myriad of illusions around her all shimmering and delicate. This was the bonus of her powers; to create illusions so powerful they made her invisible to human sight. My senses though had always been seemingly immune to her powers.

"Drop your illusion Ryann." (with the silent n) "My friends think I'm talking to empty space." Ryann didn't drop her powers but used them to create a body for her that the others could see. She was closer no and her scent swam around me and welcomed up a lifetime of memories about her that I'd thought successfully drowned.

"I missed you Shifty." She said and we grabbed each other in a hug that whispered of desperation.

"I missed you to." I told her and she took a step back and her lips twitched into a teasing smile.

"Nice sweater." I smiled in response, the sweater was hers. I took in the black trench coat and blue jeans.

"Nice coat." I said giving her a lazy once over and she laughed and tossed her hair, the trench coat was mine.

"Should we trade back?" she asked and I pulled the sweater off over my head. She laughed again as though she hadn't done it in a long time and handed me the trench coat. I shrugged it on and it felt just like old times as the cold leather brushed and settled against my exposed flesh. She had the sweater on and it looked as though it had never left her back. Looking at the picture of her standing there identical to the one that nestled in my memories I felt the last four years without her run off me as though I was just now waking form a dream. She reached up and pulled the toque off revealing my bloody red streaked shag.

"I take it that you're fighting a losing battle with yourself little brother." I smiled and it felt predatory as I surrendered to my subconscious and there was a grinding of bone as joints shifted and bones reshaped themselves. I glanced over at the others, my friends, now they felt like strangers; they were looking at me as though they were thinking the same thing. Well in a way I was a stranger to them, they'd never seen this side of me and I didn't intend to give them more then this one peek of it. I nodded to them once, it was a dismissal, it was farewell. When I turned back to Ryann the smirk was on her face again, the one that I remembered so well, the one that meant she found some little thing amusing.

"What? You're here now I win the bet. For four years I've battled it out as a vegetarian but now, now you owe me and I intend to collect on it." Ryann laughed, her gorgeous eyes glittered in excitement and anticipation. I loved that about it, it was something that I had missed, she found everything funny because she processed the ability to step back and look at it from any perspective to find the humour.

"Then we'd better call Destiny and get this party started." she touched the pendant that she'd wrapped around her wrist in the same fashion I'd wrapped my ring and chain around my own. The polished oval stone flashed once with a soft sapphire light then we waited.

I was the first to hear it, the soft melodic chimes undercut with the drums of chaos. I turned to the east and Ryann looked at me then turned as well, trusting my judgement. Suddenly what appeared to be a shooting star began to fall towards the ground then it levelled off and rocketed towards us. It grew larger and larger till it looked to be about the same size as a person and the drums made the very air around us tremble and the chimes twinkled like lightning dancing among us. Behind me I sensed the others take a step back. The pendant pulsed again and the light flashed, I was glad I had slipped my sunglasses on so I wasn't quite blinded by the light and I was able to watch Destiny step through the portal she'd ripped in the fabric of reality.

Her white blonde hair curled around her head like an angles tresses. Her eyes were a dark deep brown that always appeared to be too large for her face. They were he most intriguing feature. Usually distant and vague as though she was lost in a dream there were times like now, when they were focused in the present that they hinted at the secrets in their dark depths and revealed the true age that the body of this fiver year old child hid. She looked up t me and a smile, radiant as the heavens, broke over her face.

"Shifty!" she squealed and leapt at me wrapping her small arms around my waist. She was a disturbing mix of young and old. Her powers had killed her at the age of five but they'd also allowed her to travel freely between all realms and dimensions. Passing easily from one reality to the next, death held as little claim to her as life had. After all she's been dead going on ten years not. She had died before I'd even heard of the children of eternity, before I'd even left Africa's blessed shores.

"Destiny," I said picking her up and giving her a hug, "what have you been up to?" she giggled.

"Oh, this and that. Ryann asked me to keep an eye on you make sure you didn't cheat." she hugged me again suddenly sliding back into the child. "I knew you'd make it!" I glanced over at Ryann who didn't even have the decency to blush for having me spied on.

"Destiny can you do me a favour?" Ryann asked calmly and I put the blonde child down and she turned to the tall Amazon that Ryann resembled at times. Her brown eyes glowed for a moment then she smiled.

"Sure I'll open a door to the forest for you." she answered before Ryann even got to ask. Ryann took a deep breath and I could almost hear her counting to ten. She didn't like it when the younger girl did that. Meanwhile with the unconcern that children excel at Destiny ignored her and grabbed hold of the key that hung from a golden chain around her waist. She held it out in front of her and slid it forward slightly as though inserting it into a lock then she twisted it and I felt the air tremble again as the drums took up their beat and reality parted for her. Before her as though separated by a shimmering curtain a different world was revealed. I smiled and felt my whole body jump to attention, my every cell suddenly attuned to the anticipation that flared through my blood swift as a forest fire. I could almost taste the hot bittersweet blood already. Feel the cold air rushing past me and hear the swift steps fleeing before me. I dropped down on one knee and gave Destiny a hug then I glanced over at my friends and nodded to them. My eyes met Robin's and I sent a thought out to him that I knew he would read in my expression, _Now you know where I'm going._ I felt the air beside me stir and I looked over to at Ryann who nodded.

"A bets a bet." she said and muttered something under her breath then where moments before a girl had stood now a silver wolf waited. "_Come little brother, the hunt begins"_

My name is Beast Boy, I'm a member of the Teen Titans. Someonewho has agreed to dedicate my life to protect a city but I'm a killer. It's written into the marrow of my bones, I'm the ultimate predator ever created by nature or man. My four-year penance is over. It's time. I surrender to instinct. My muscles bunch and flow like liquid steel as we race into the forest. As we pursue a fleeing deer there is only time for one last thought. This is my secret identity, this is a facet of me that my friends will never know, never truly understand. Then the blood lust consumes me…

The End


	4. He Gets That From Me

_**Disclaimer: Don't own teen titans or this beautiful song… (teardrop)**_

_**A.N. Folks tell me what you think. Should I do this again?**_

**_P.S. I dedicate the next update to the person who can tell me who the singer and title is for this song. "_**…I become so high I can feel you here. Become so high… …be more like me and be less like you…" **_sorry those are only two lines I know and it's stuck in my head so please SOMEONE tell me who and what song please!_**

_**HE GETS THAT FROM ME**_

_**) Sung by Reba McIntyre (**_

"Hey rise and shine hotshot." A soft feminine vice whispered in my ear and I stretched lazily one hand sneaking around under the blankets to give the pale perfect curve of her rear a playful squeeze. She smacked my shoulder in retaliation but I opened my eyes and rolled with her over the bed till I loomed over her small pale form. Her eyes glowed up at me and I felt my heart stutter in awe and wonder at what dice of fate had given me the love of this strong, beautiful woman. I lowered my head and kissed her, long and deep. Then I raised my head from hers we were both breathing hard and every muscle in my body had sprang to attention at the feel of her warm and willing under me. My hands began to roam and she put a hand to my chest distracting my thoughts momentarily.

"It's morning, Spirit might wake up." she said softly and I gave a predatory smile, pride filling in the shadows of it as I dropped my lips to her neck.

"No son of mine is going to be awake at this ungodly hour." she laughed softly and her hands began to roam over my back.

_**His early morning' attitude**_

_**You have to drag him out of bed**_

_**Only frosted flakes will do**_

_**He gets that from me**_

_**Yeah, he gets that from me**_

"So then-" the young boy continued his one sided conversation while we puttered around the kitchen. Or rather, while his mother puttered around the kitchen since I'd been banished to the kitchen table with a cup of coffee after she declared me a safety hazard. It wasn't my fault she was so easily distracted and had burnt the pancakes. So once more it was Frosted Flakes for breakfast, it was sugar how could I complain. The boy looked over at me and studied me through eyes that were both foreign and yet painfully familiar. It had been a pleasant surprise that he'd taken after the human portion of my DNA not my altered strain. I'd nearly forgotten that my hair had once been curly and that my eyes hadn't always been green. And the freckles, those I did remember but only because I had a strong memory of super strong sunscreen and a woman rubbing it on my face and teasing my about them affectionately. I looked over at the woman in the kitchen and she smiled at the two of us as I pulled the toddler onto my lap and listened to his long endless story.

_**His curly hair and his knobbly knees**_

_**The way the sun brings those freckles out**_

_**Talk and talk and never miss a beat**_

_**Yeah, he gets that from me**_

_**He gets that from me**_

"Mom I can't find my bag." Kole complained as he floated into the kitchen his black hair hung in a shag and his brown eyes glittered with a strange almost inhuman light. His skin held a light golden hue that he'd inherited from his mother. Starfire looked up at him from over the edge of the easel and smiled at him softly and chuckled.

"Did you check the," paused searching for the correct word, "room of study?" she asked him and he paused and gave a short chuckle.

"I'll ah, go do that." he said quickly disappearing back into the hallway. Starfire shook her head the looked back at the easel and twisting her brush in the soft watercolours continued from where she'd been before. It was a simple image that she had in mind. Nothing like the wild and fanciful paintings that she'd done of Tammerans familiar landscape but instead it would be a theme that was well known on both words. Her brush slid over the tight canvas creating the sweeping lines of the forms. They would be sketchy slightly vague except for the faces those she would detail more. Softly out of the lines of colour the image of a woman seated on a small boulder appeared a small child swaddled in her arms looking up at her while she looked down. One arm draped loosely over her shoulder stood a man with midnight hair and dark brown eyes. The expressions on the adults' faces were tender and loving both for each other and their child. The infant looked happy and he looked up at them with nearly identical brown eyes of his father.

A touch on her shoulder snapped her out of her reverie and made her aware of the tears flowing softly down her face. She looked up and her son in silent understanding wrapped his arms around her and they held each other tightly then he looked at her and smiled. A silly crooked little grin that she treasured both from the symbol from him and the soft reminder of the past that echoed out of it. Nearly identical to the one in the painting that she'd just completed…

_**He looks at me with those big brown eyes**_

_**He's got me in the palm of his hands**_

_**And I swear sometimes**_

_**It's just like you're here again**_

_**He smiles that little crooked smile**_

_**There's no denying he's your child**_

_**Without him I don't know what I'd do**_

_**He gets that from you**_

_**Oh, he gets that from you**_

"Tybl!" A slender black woman yelled as she stared up a narrow set of stairs. "Tybl! Lets go you're going to be late for school!" from behind a closed door came the wild cords and riffs of an old acoustic guitar. Bee rolled her eyes and raised her fist and banged on the door wishing not for the first time that she hadn't shown Vic's old guitar to their son. "Tybl I'm not joking get your butt out that door other wise you'll have to walk to school if you miss the bus!" it wasn't an empty threat and the adolescent in the room knew it as well. The guitar fell silent and the door swung open and he blew into the hall and seeing the annoyed look on his mothers face decided that maybe it was time to play his trump card just in case he crossed another line before he left the house. He wrapped her in a tight smothering hug and said he loved her and gave her a kiss on the cheek then let go of her and dashed down the stairs to the kitchen as the faint rumblings of the bus could be heard coming down the road. Bee swallowed and bit her lip then followed him down the stairs. He called something to her as he raced down the driveway and she laughed and leaned against the doorframe at the cheesy one liner and watched as his bright blue eyes glowed with excitement as he turned to the bus lugging his football equipment behind him. An all star athlete football season was always one of his favourite times of year.

_**How he loves your old guitar**_

_**Yeah, he's taught himself to play**_

_**He melts my heart**_

_**Tells me he loves me every day**_

_**And cracks a joke at the perfect time**_

_**Makes me laugh when I want to cry**_

_**That boy is everything to me**_

_**He gets that from you**_

_**He gets that from you**_

Raven walked down the dark hallway toward her sons' room refusing to look up at the pictures decorating the walls then paused outside her sons door as she heard him praying and silently cursed the duty that had taken something so precious from the two of them…

Starfire stared at the painting on the easel, titled undying love and clung to the large soft pillow after tucking her son into bed and hearing the prayer that he'd sent up to the earthling heavens and even repeated it in Tammeranian for his other peoples gods…

Bee sat in the drives seat of an old blue and white car, it had seen many many miles but her husband's car was built to last, unfortunately it had survived where he hadn't. Tybl was gone to school now but she knew that Vic's death had affected all of them, as well as the death of Beast Boy, aka Garfield, and Robin aka Dick. Softly she mouthed Cyborg's given name then rested her head on the steering wheel and sobbed the golden band on her finger glinting in the soft moonlight…

_**Last night I heard him pray**_

_**Lord, help me and mama make it through**_

_**And tell Daddy we'll be okay**_

_**He said he sure misses you**_

_**He sure misses you**_

_**He really misses you**_

_**He gets that from me **_

)A.N(

Thanks to everyone who reviewed my chapter this one is for you! (opps, I did forget to really describe the "Children of Etenity" didn't I? I'm thinking of redoing part of that chapter but I'll probably be using them in future one shots so you'll get to meet them fairly soon) Now onto the reason for this author note. I'm thinking of doing some stories on the other characters and I've hit some writers block so please send some ideas. (pleasepleaseplease) they don't have to be good just something to inspire me. You don't have to, just review this at the least. (Do it and I swear to all the important things in the universe I'll always review a story I read in the future!) (I know you're out there I can see how many hit's a stories gotten I just want to know how many of you actually read it from top to bottom) come on I know someone does) close up of eye I can see all…)

See ya

Red Vixen


	5. The Tests prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titan's or this song but the plot and non-Titan Characters are mine.

Note: The POV changes between Raven and Beast Boy.

A.N. Alright folks I'll give you a warning. I originally wrote the following story as a one shot but I didn't think you'd want to read 26 pages all in one sitting so I've split it into a prologue and five chapters. I hope you enjoy it. Review and let me know!

(male voice)

_Night, _

_and the spirit of life_

_Calling, _

** Flash **

"Its time cub." a man stood in silhouette against the sun rising at his back, none of his features visible to me.

"It's no use asking for one more day is it?" a voice answered from behind me, it sounded familiar and I turned around and stared as another form stood in the shadows of the night and because of the glare of the sun on the building behind him he was a featureless silhouette as well.

"The tests begin today cub, you knew they were coming you have had many years to prepare for them." the man answered not moving, the cloak around his shoulders ruffled in the breeze and for a moment I saw glimpse of Siberian tiger fur then it became a shadow again. I was trapped where I was my gaze flickering back and forth between the two speakers.

"What happens to me then?" the smaller one spoke calmly a child questioning an impatient elder.

"The same thing that you were told in the beginning. If you pass you are welcomed if you fail then you don't have to worry about it." the man replied and reached out a hand.

"Come cub the Mother is waiting, and it is time for you to step into the light as you were meant to. It is time to find your place in the cycle." The boy, I was sure that's what he was now hesitated then stepped forward and placed his hand in the others-

** Flash **

"Come child I won't hurt you." a woman spoke softly and held out her arms to a form hidden from me in the rough scrub bush. The bush rustled but that was the only response. "Come child, come here." her voice was soft and musical, I could sense an aura of great power from her and the sort of timelessness that people see when they gaze upon a place untouched and unspoiled by civilization. Her hair hung down around her shoulders a rich sapphire blue that complimented the metallic, ancient gold of her eyes.

"Leave him, he is not worth the time. Many like him have come before why do you wish save this one?"

"Because my protector, there has never been one like this and will never be again." she answered and cooed softly to the thing in the bush.

"I've never argued with you before but I fail to see why this one is so special. If you want another one you can simply do as you did with this one." the man insisted, his hair shone silver and fell to below his shoulder blades and he had the same timeless sense as the woman his eyes were a pale tiger eye blue and a small sliver of gold nestled in his right eye. A cloak made of a white Siberian tiger skin hung off his broad shoulders and his hand rested on the bone white hilt of a slender sword his eyes watching their surroundings suspiciously. For the first time the woman showed impatience as she shot a glance up at him.

"Because no other soul but his could work. He called out to me, you felt it yourself, the virus should have killed him as it killed all the others but he fought it, for a year and a half he held it at bay while all before him died within days. It was through the will of his soul that his heat continued to beat and his lungs drew breath. For that will alone I gave his father the means to save him-"

"Our blood! You gave him our blood!" the man interrupted and the woman's eyes narrowed on his, I could see that this was an argument that they'd had before.

"Yes our blood beloved, the only possible cure. You did not object at the time." she held up a hand stopping him when he opened his mouth to say something, "Yes I know the two were not supposed to die but I can't take it back, they were beyond my powers but this little one is not." she glanced at the bush and so did I and saw now a small shadowy figure blended into it. Watching them warily, but at the same time it seemed to be leaning closer to them.

"Come little one, come to me. Nothing will harm you." slowly it took a step forward. I saw that it was human shaped and at the same time something about it seemed to say that it wasn't human. "Yes little one," the woman held out her hands, "come." The child, if that's what it was, puts it's small hands in hers and she slowly led it out of the safety of the shadowy bush and into her arms. I gasped but I was watcher and they were ignorant of my presence.

The child wasn't human. It's skin was a rich emerald green it's hair a darker shade it's teeth were too sharp and it muscular structure visible in his naked starved out state was far from human. Quickly the woman stood clasping the child in her arms and turned to the man. For a moment his face was visible to me his eyes an almost metallic green, with a fire the seemed to burn behind them, were entirely human and the sorrow and fear in them tore at me. Then he turned to look at the man and snarled at him gripping the woman tighter. She chuckled and shifted her grip on him.

"Easy little one," she murmured then looked at the man. "This is the child of all and the child of none," she told the man looking him square in the face, "There is a time when he will be needed and letting him die is not an option."

"You've watched others die." the man pointed out and she closed her eyes.

"Yes I have and mourn for them all, they were my children as this one is, but they died when their time came, his time hasn't come and he is a infant. Would you abandon one of your cubs so easily?" then man sighed and looked at the boy.

"He knows nothing of what will come does he, nothing of what he is."

"No, he doesn't but he will learn, but he would learn better if someone taught him how to survive." she gave him a pointed look and the man raised his eyebrows.

"It is not the place of the male to raise a cub such as this," he pointed out. The woman gave a small smile.

"No but you are the warrior, you are the one who could teach him to survive without." the man looked at the child with the same wariness that it watched him.

"He should go back to the humans." he pointed out, "I can teach him our ways but not theirs."

"True but he will not age as they do, they learn quickly for they have but a short time before they are gone. He will learn quickly as well but he will not live the short flash of their lives, he will live as long as the longest lifespan, maybe even our own. Take him to the mountain. Teach him the ways, then you will have had him for years while the next week passes, by then he will be ready to return to them. He will be easier to teach now then when he gets older." the man watched the two before him and his shoulders sagged. She was right, I could see he knew that and he finally backed off.

"Alright I will teach him and when the time comes to give him back he will have learned what I can teach." she smiled and then the two of them disappeared in a flash of light-

** Flash **

I sat straight up with a gasp as I felt the visions leave me, the blanket clutched tight in my fists. The door to my room opened and Robin and the others burst in.

"Raven what's wrong we heard you call out?" he asked his body language concerned.

"N-nothing just a-a vision." I stammered to shaken by what had just happened to deny what I had seen.

"Is it a bad vision friend Raven?" Starfire asked concerned, I shook my head as I looked over the others. Cyborg's face was relived but there was still a faint concern in his eyes. Beast Boy peeked over his shoulder plain worry on his usually cheerful face, I had a flash again of the eyes of the child in the woman's arms but already both of the visions were fading away form me. I noticed that both Beast Boy and Cyborg were leery of stepping into my room.

"It, it was just surprising I guess guys, I didn't mean to wake you." I told them and they all shared a look then Robin nodded.

"Okay everyone, let's get back to bed." Robin ordered and they all pulled out of my room and the door slid shut, Robin remained.

"Raven?" he asked and I nodded. I knew he wanted to know what I had seen but respected my privacy too much to ask.

"There were two, one seemed to be the future while I'm positive that the other is something from the past." I told him and he sat down on the edge of my bed.

"Were they of your father?" I shook my head quickly.

"No, they weren't even about me…" I thought back then shook my head.

"The-the one of the future I can still remember but, the second one, the one that seemed to be the past, it-its fading. The one that I can really remember is just of two people talking. One's got his back to the sun so his face is hidden and the other one, is facing the sun but there's a building behind him reflecting the light so I can't see him either. They're talking about something, sort of an inside subject. It's about a test of some kind. The man with his back to the sun has come to pick up the other for some sort of test. The only definite thing that they said about it was that if he failed then he didn't have to worry about what came next."

"Meaning failure means death?" he asked and I nodded.

"Yeah, um, Robin? Has Beast Boy ever told you anything about his past?" I asked, he looked at me quizzically.

"Was Beast Boy in the vision?" My eyes unfocused off in the distance.

"I think it had to be him I don't know anyone else who's green. I-I saw a little boy who was green like beast boy and had his eyes and a man and woman were arguing about something." I paused struggling but the vision slipped away. "It's gone." I said shaking my head, "I can't see anything else from it now." Robin nodded and put a gloved hand over mine.

"I trust you Rae, we have a bond so I'll tell you what I know about Beast Boy. I don't know his real name but, he came from Africa, two crooks kidnapped him when he was about seven, they forced him to steal things for them then he ran away a year later. He hasn't told me about what he did between then and when he joined us but," he hesitant then spoke softly. "There was a warrant out for his arrest for a little while so I think that whatever he did it might or might not have been legal." I nodded.

"Thanks Robin." I said and he nodded and stood up and left the room leaving me alone in the darkness.


	6. The Tests cont

Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titan's or this song but the plot and non-Titan Characters are mine.

Note: The POV changes between Raven and Beast Boy.

P.S. Since I'm not getting any feedback on the first part of this story here is the rest of it...

Chapter 1

(voice male)

_And a voice_

_With the fear of a child_

_Asking…_

It was one of those days when nothing but the stars in the sky seem to hold the answers, and nothing but humans seem to search for them, that it happened. It wasn't anything truly great, it was something much more innocent, no bombs went off and nothing that the world will remember forever happened. Instead it was something that everyone who witnessed called an accident, all three witnesses. Even the one who was involved directly called it merely an accident. But one, one knew it was more, knew what it truly represented and it is that knowledge, the well from which that knowledge came from, that was the beginning, the beginning of an adventure the likes of which no human has experienced in over 6 million years…

"Come on B, get up!" Cyborg cheered his best friend on while the smaller boy pushed himself up onto his hands and knees shaking his head to clear it. The Titans were in the training room and today the small green shape shifter and the team leader Robin were sparring. Robin was back in the centre of the circle the two boys were fighting in. It was about eighty feet in diameter and took up almost the entire gym. Raven, Starfire, and Cyborg were cheering on both competitors from the sidelines. The goal of the sparing match today was to force your opponent out of the circle, so far though, neither had succeeded, Beast Boy's tactic of the day was to shift into something to heavy for Robin to move while he caught his breath. Robin's was simply to keep Beast Boy on the defensive.

"Get up friend!" Starfire called out as Beast Boy stayed on his hands and knees for a moment gathering his wits from the smack in the head Robin had given him. Finally the ten seconds forced pause that they had added to the rules was over and Robin leapt at Beast Boy again. Suddenly his target disappeared. He skidded to a stop and looked around and the three watchers went silent. Beast Boy didn't have the power to vanish and everyone was wondering what game he was playing. Suddenly a slender tubular tentacle warped around Robin from behind pulling his feet out from him and he hit the ground hard. The appendage continued to thicken and wrap around the dark haired teens legs, even though the boy wonder couldn't see what it was attached to the others could and they knew that it wasn't an appendage it was the body of a snake. Suddenly Robin was lifted off the ground and his jaw dropped as he was turned to face the bright green head of the serpent.

"I didn't know snakes came that big…" Raven trailed off as a shiver wound it's way up her spine. The snake Beast boy had morphed into was at least a hundred feet long and at least three feet at his thickest. His many sinuous loops were coiled both around Robin and under him and he held his head up like a king cobra waving back and forth the eyes flat and merciless. Robin shook of his shock and began to struggle against the coils around him but Beast boy merely turned the boy wonder upside down and opened his massive jaws, and two thick fangs were revealed and the forked tongue appeared as well, flicking in and out in a quick move. Robin shoved his staff at him warningly but Beast Boy suddenly released him so fast that only Robin's cat like reflexes saved him from landing on his head.

Beast Boy shrunk back on himself till he was in his own body again and he looked at himself in surprise then muttered a quick, "aww shit" as Robin came at him with his staff and ducked just in time to avoid the blow.

"You had me BB, why'd you let me go?" Robin asked as he took aim at Beast Boy and the shape-shifter ducked out of the way with unusual speed. The smile he sent the other teen was rueful.

"Shift slipped, too big too fast. Besides, where's the challenge in crushing you to mush." the shape shifter was breathing harder then he should have been for the workout he'd had. He kept backing away from Robin and Robin gave him a quizzical look as he dogged another blow. Usually Beast Boy shifted after a couple of seconds but he hadn't yet.

"Problem's Beast Boy?" Robin asked arching an eyebrow, and the green teen flashed him a quick smile. His eyes momentarily flashing as though a fire had ignited behind their emerald depths. Suddenly he flipped backwards and landed as a black and emerald tiger. He lunged at Robin who hadn't been expecting it and three hundred pounds of solid muscle and bone collided with a hundred and forty pounds of teenager and they went down on the floor.

Robin let out a rush of breath but managed to flip Beast Boy off. Suddenly Beast Boy sank his fangs into Robin's cape and began to pull the winded fighter across the floor towards the edge of the circle. Robin struggled but his cape was beginning to strangle him. He reached up and flipped the hidden buckle by his chin and the offending article detached much to Beast Boy's surprise. Robin was up on his hands and knees scrambling for his staff when he let out a muffled yell as Beast Boy leapt after him and sank his fangs into shoulder. Robin's other arm managed to grab his staff and he brought it around and clubbed Beast Boy across the side of the head stunning him enough for him let go momentarily. He shook his head and brought up one of his great paws to try to brush off the darkness that suddenly over came his one eye. Robin got to his feet and watched the tiger for a moment before trying to feel out his shoulder without looking at it. He winced then looked over at Beast Boy who had paused his nostrils momentarily flared and his large pink tongue slipped out and reverently wiped the single ruby droplet of blood off his muzzle.

Robin braced himself and felt something deep within his mind shiver as Beast Boy hesitated, seeming to struggle with something within him for a moment before his eyes suddenly switched from emerald to a feral gold. He lowered into a crouch and bared his fangs at his leader, then began to move with silent steps around him, circling like a hunter waiting for the final strike. Robin shifted his grip on his staff for a moment and in that second the tiger lunged. He moved like lightning as though thought was to slow for him. He took Robin down and the teen was forced to put his hands on either of the jaws as the tiger went for his throat.

"Jesus Beast Boy!" he said as pain radiated from his shoulder up his arm and down his back. A droplet of hot saliva landed on his chest and he brought his legs up and slammed them in the tigers belly flipping it off him and out of the circle into the wall. He laid there gasping for a moment then rose up and looked at his teammate.

Slowly the hair of the tiger shrunk away leaving the small form of his friend. Beast Boy stiffly sat up and gently put a hand to the tender back of his head and winced then he looked at his leader and the blood drained from his face. Distantly Robin thought that it was an interesting combination with his green skin.

"Holy shift Robin I didn't mean it!" he said jumping up and coming over to his opponent, the match now over. He pressed a green hand against the wound on Robin's shoulder, stopping the flow of blood that had been beating out of it from the artery that Robin hadn't noticed broken. "Sit down." he said there was an edge to his voice and Robin glanced at his shoulder and shuddered as his legs gave out and he hit the floor hard.

Blood (his blood!) welled up under Beast Boy's hand as the changeling kept pressure on it slowing the bleeding slightly. It was hard to recognise it as his own shoulder, his suit had been torn open and he could see the individual holes from the fangs. He swallowed and looked away feeling his head going light. Raven appeared beside them and so did Cyborg quickly they took over from Beast Boy while Starfire came over to Robin's other side and spoke to him softly. Keeping a wary eye on what the other two were doing. Raven closed her eyes and muttered her chant under her breath and the healing glow bloomed from her hands to Robin's shoulder. When she took them away only soft pink scars remained. Robin swallowed again and looked back at his shoulder. He lifted it and winced at the pain but at least it was usable.

"Beast Boy what happened?" He asked then looked around for his teammate when there was no answer, as the swinging doors of the gym stilled…


	7. Tests prt3

Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titan's or this song but the plot and non-Titan Characters are mine.

Note: The POV changes between Raven and Beast Boy.

Chapter 2

(male voice)

W_ait,_

_There's no mountain to great_

_Hear these words and have faith_

_Have faith_

The moon hung heavy in the sky and the stars glimmered softly, a single person sat on the waters edge. The waves washed against the stones softly immune to the mood of the boy sitting there. His eyes were distant as he focused off on the invisible horizon where the black water joined the black sky. He closed his eyes and shivered as the memory of the hot copper blood filled his thoughts and he swallowed as he remembered the loss of control he had felt, the way the sweet heat of the blood had pushed him over the edge.

He'd always kept a tight hold over himself whenever he had fought either his friends or the bad guys. His talents were to destroy and kill, in the wild you fought to kill and it was the only way. The shapes he had used to fight were used to that and trying not to hurt anyone was what had put him on the bottom end of the fighting area. But something different had happened today, more then his friends would ever know. It had started when he'd shifted into that snake, he had lost his grip on the shift, the DNA that he'd used had been stable but some outside force had knocked it down and had made him revert to his normal form. He still hadn't been able to figure out what it had been then Robin's barrage of attacks had forced him to take another shift and that one had gone wrong to. He had told his DNA to shift into a wolf but it had taken someone else's orders and morphed into a tiger. How the tiger's mind had been unusually difficult to control and how it had longed to fight the way it would naturally.

He felt another tremor run down his spine, it had wanted to kill and would have succeeded if it had been someone other then Robin. He fisted his hand and looked down at it. The green skin was highlighted with silver from the moonlight, and he could feel the microscopic shift of his DNA in the very cells of the flesh. He sighed and looked out over the water.

"What's happening to me?" He muttered and another sigh slid out of his lips followed by a disgusted snort, who was he trying to fool, he knew what was happening. The time was coming and his final days as he was were fading away. He'd heard the call all the way across the ocean. The birds that circled lazily over the city were chanting the message; everything around him was constantly repeating it. It would be time soon but he wasn't sure he could take them anymore… wasn't sure he would be able to survive them… another sigh, this time of bitter acceptance, escaped his defeated form once more as destiny tightened it's death grip around his small body.

"Beast Boy?" the green teen felt his shoulders sag even lower at the voice and the tone; the fickle wind carried her scent to him teasing whiffs of what he could never have. He listened to the soft scrape of gravel under her steps as she approached him. Keeping his face averted as she sat down. Bitterly repeating the mantra within his thoughts, "I am the clown, the silent jester, a painted smile hides all true tears…"

"Beast Boy? What happened?" Raven asked her body language revealing more then her words. Raven always thought that she could hide her emotions so well and she could, honestly she hid them better then anyone he had ever met before. But he had 65 million years worth of experience of reading body language hardwired into his DNA. So even the subtle hints that Raven gave were received loud and clear by him add to that the knowledge, no matter how incomplete, of his experiences with her and she could be like reading a picture book some days. Right now concern was what she was showing with a little bit of wariness as well.

"It's nothing the DNA just slipped on me." He lied and she sat down next to him, her scent a torture to his thoughts. Now he watched her reflection in the water between waves and her body language said she wanted to reach out to him to comfort him for what though she didn't exactly know. He kept his face averted from hers remembering the last time the two of them had met at the water's edge like this, after he had turned into the were-beast. He had needed her forgiveness then, and even though he had joked and ruined their close moment he had done it because he hadn't wanted her to know just how close she had hit to a nerve. He still hadn't forgotten it and that night had haunted his dreams ever since, returning whenever he thought it had gone for good.

"Beast Boy you- you…" she trailed off trying to organise her thoughts. "I've never asked you but what did you do before you joined us?" she asked and he turned to her, his eyes narrowed in suspicion and surprise. It wasn't like Raven to pry or ask about what wasn't freely offered. She sat hunched up staring out over the water as though waiting for him to tell her to back off, waiting for the hurt. Strangely he knew if anyone else had asked him he would have made a joke and kept up his reputation as a clown but since it was Raven asking, Raven, who closed herself off from the world so tightly, Raven, who, despite appearances, was so sacred of being rebuked or hurt that she rarely asked for fear of being denied and didn't reveal much for the same reason.

"What do you want to know?" He said watching her calmly with curiosity that edged to suspicion. She turned to him as though she was surprised that he was offering to talk.

"Anything, I don't know just anything and I don't know I guess I'm…" she searched for the right word, "curious." she finished and looked at him meeting his eyes.

"Well I guess I just sort of floated. Stayed out of view of people as often as I could. I lived in the bush for a while fell though the cracks of social services and was on my own. Did a few things that weren't quite lawful but nothing really serious." he looked out over the water, "dreamed mostly of going home again one day," he looked down at his hands again, "yeah that was something I did a lot, still do from time to time, there's something about the city that just can't compare." he trailed off as suddenly the flat expanse of water dissolved before him and his mind painted the flat dry savannah that he remembered so well.

The scattered trees where animals lounged in the faint shade, and the rocks and sand where the lions yawned and play fought. The massive herds of thousands of animals some of them so unique that no one truly appreciated them. The sense of timelessness and continuality that seemed to say, yeah you're here and that's important how? The skies so blue and unique that they seemed different there then anywhere else. The heat of the night and the completely different sets of laws that seemed to take over then and how when the sunrise came it was always greeted by the stirrings of life once more… He started when he realised that he had been saying all of that out loud and Raven was listening. He flushed in embarrassment that was hard to see with his skin colour. "err, yeah." he mumbled and went silent, the night and the ocean settling back into their respective places.

"Do you miss it? Africa?" Raven asked and he sighed realising that it was to late to change the mood for the moment.

"Yeah in a way… Do you miss Azerath?" he asked and she jerked for a moment then looked out to sea.

"I do some days, it was my home for a large portion of my life but I already know that I'll never be able to go back and I can recognise now that it is a better place for my mother to live then it is for me. Her place was there and mine is here on earth." she fidgeted, "What do you miss most?" she asked and he gave another wry smile.

"You don't give up do you?" the smile faded, "I miss the space, my mountain, it's the first home that I can remember it's the place where I died, where I was born…" he trailed off uncomfortable, "But then if I was living there I wouldn't be able to play any video games now would I?" he said trying to break the mood. Raven just looked at him and he let out a sigh, "Let's not talk about it forget I said anything." he said sharply before she could say anything. She froze never having heard him use that tone before. Then she nodded and looked out to the ocean accepting and respecting his desire to drop the topic.

They sat in silence for a while, nothing but the lap of the waves offering any sort of sound then suddenly a breeze began to whip around them, Raven glanced over at her green team mate but when he appeared to be ignorant or uncaring of the wind that stung his cheeks with cold she simply gathered her cloak around her and stayed as well. She glanced at Beast Boy out of the corner of her eyes and realised that he had his head cocked to one side as though he was listening to someone whispering in his ear. She narrowed her eyes wondering who could be talking then she heard a murmur as well and keeping her gaze on beast boy sought the source of the voice.

"_My son… you sit and gaze upon my relentless shores yet you continue to not answer… I'm calling you will you not answer… I can see you… feel the pulse of your heart… I am the air that you breath… the rock you sit upon… will you not answer me my little one?…" _Raven blinked and turned her head to look directly at Beast Boy who closed his eyes and bowed his head as though struggling with something deep within himself. Raven opened her mouth to say something when the wind whipped by her and that same motherly female voice spoke only this time Raven sensed that the whisper was for her alone.

"_Shhh… my daughter of darkness… be still and listen to me… this is something far older then you… he must make this decision alone… be still my daughter… be easy… Have faith my Hope… I am not here to take him form you… yet… I am merely here to help him soothe the burns that lie within him… be silent… be still… and listen as well…" _then the voice left her, and Raven shivered at the brush of power that trickled over her skin like a caress as well. She glanced around then back at Beast Boy and blinked as the moon kissed the single silver tear that slipped out from under his eyelids.

"**_Why!…"_** another voice called out and the single word seemed to rip at her soul, and she ached to reach out and take away the misery and confusion that it expressed, "… **_Why me!… I don't know if I can do it… I don't know if I can… If I can leave… I'm not strong enough… I'm…" _**

"_Avoiding the real question within you…" _a smile seemed to slip into the voice, the voice that Raven could now recognise as both ancient and achingly familiar, "… _The one sitting next to you now doesn't believe that you're not strong enough… and she doesn't even know what the task you face is… My child you never doubted you strength when you had to will your own heart to beat in order to survive… Never once as that part of you shifted… why do you question it now?… why now do you doubt that strength of your soul, your will, now that you must test it?… You have been taken to a land far from your home true… a land that is outside the rules that you in your secret past embrace… but it is your home to… will you sacrifice one for the other…"_

"**_I must in order to do as you ask… I must leave this place… wander the sands of time… If I fail I will cease to be… If I succeed I- I fear the future that spans before me_** …" the younger voice, the child's voice says, Raven can almost see the speaker clinging to skirts of a mother, his head resting upon her knees, tears seeping from his eyes.

"_My son you remember the pool?…" _the woman asks and within Raven's mind the scene holds strong now a gentle hand, dark as rich earth, smoothes against his hair, the boy nods his head still laying upon the woman's lap. "_The future is nothing but pretty pictures… nothing is solid, till the future meets the present… some things, some events… are unchangeable as the seasons shift, but the choices of the present allow us to choose how we face them… whether alone or with a pack… from behind or in front… free or in chains… I laid down the laws back when everything was young… I can't change them now for you… nor would I… they are there for a reason… even now you can feel the change within you… the time of the tests are coming… you shall face them fail or succeed as all before you… even humans themselves have bowed their heads and humbled their pride to the tests… you will take them as well my little one… but speak to me now… and ease you soul… have faith… the future isn't for you to worry about… the dawn will come… and when it does my protector will come for you and you two will fight and snarl and fight and scrape… ah, I see that… you're even looking forward to that… males…" _she said in mock exasperation and Raven sat still next to Beast Boy through the long night, keeping him company, and listening to both woman and child as they spoke. Many things she didn't understand but when the woman's voice finally faded away and the wind lifted he opened his eyes and stared out into the darkness. Her hand was gripped within his own…


	8. Tests prt4

_Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titan's or this song but the plot and non-Titan Characters are mine. _

_Note: The POV changes between Raven and Beast Boy._

_Chapter 3_

_(Mans Voice)_

_They live in you_

_They live in me_

_They're watching over_

_Everything we see…_

Slowly the morning dawn crept over Jump City and the cold chill of the night clung stubbornly to the earth. Raven shivered slightly and sat up grasping the blanket that had been draped over she shoulders closer to her and trying to get her sleepy mind to shift gears as to why she was sitting down by the water at this hour. Suddenly she remembered sitting down here with Best Boy and the voice in the wind and how she had fallen asleep sitting on the rocks down here with him. She looked around quickly wondering where he had gone. She was half turned around when suddenly she froze when a voice spoke from behind her as the sun crested the water and struck the tower with blinding light.

"Its time cub." Raven whipped around to look behind her, a man stood in silhouette against the sun rising at his back, over the ocean, none of his features visible.

"It's no use asking for one more day is it?" a voice answered from behind her, it sounded familiar and she turned around and stared as another form stood in the shadows of the night and because of the glare of the sun on the building behind him he was a featureless silhouette as well. Only this time she knew what was coming and she knew the identity of the second speaker and the knowledge put a hollow pit inside her stomach.

"The tests begin today cub, you knew they were coming you have had many years to prepare for them." the man answered not moving, the cloak around his shoulders ruffled in the breeze and for a moment Raven saw again the glimpse of Siberian Tiger fur before it was enveloped in shadow again. She went to rise when suddenly she felt someone touch her shoulder and she turned to see a woman there. She was tall and sender, her skin the rich dark brown of wet earth and her eyes were gold the same as the woman from the second vision and her hair was still rich a sapphire match for her eyes. A tender smile was resting on her lips and she shook her head. "Let them be my dark daughter, as I said last night what will be will be. You are almost as fearful of the future as my little one, let them be. You have been given a great honour to be allowed to witness this. No human has since man-kind themselves took the tests." then she raised her eyes and the questions that were in Raven's mind were forgotten as she turned back to the scene as well.

"What happens to me?" the smaller one spoke calmly a child questioning an impatient elder.

"The same thing that you were told in the beginning. If you pass you are welcomed if you fail then you don't have to worry about it." the man replied and reached out a hand.

"Come cub the Mother is waiting, and it is time for you to step into the light as you were meant to. It is time to find your place in the cycle." The boy, Beast Boy, stepped forward but he didn't take the other mans hand, he wasn't in the darkness any longer and his eyes were bright and challenging.

"Why should I listen to you." he said his voice lower then usual and the man dropped his hand and I could feel the aggression rise between them. Beside me the woman looked skyward and shook her head.

"Every time, they do this and I swear I still can't reason it out." she muttered and looked back to them, an indulgent smile on her lips, a mother watching young boys tussle. Slowly the two of them circled each other suddenly Beast Boy leapt and they rolled for a few moments before the mans greater experience allowed him to swiftly dispatch the younger boy. Beast Boy got back to his feet and lunged again this time shifting mid-air to a wolf and the man shifted into a Siberian Tiger and they wrestled till Beast Boy was again tossed away. This was repeated for awhile till Beast Boy rose but didn't attack the man. He still had his hackles raised and snarled at him and his tail was stiff but he didn't approach. The man remained a tiger and the two of them circled and when Beast Boy didn't approach him the man/tiger took a step towards him. Beast Boy growled and took one back, his tail now tucked between his legs. The tiger jumped and Beast Boy moved out of the way. Slowly they began what seemed almost like a dance, with the tiger approaching and the wolf retreating till finally Beast Boy shifted back and the man did as well. Beast Boy's eyes were still defiant but there was no aggression now. He had accepted the order of dominance. The woman looked at them and they looked over at us for the first time as though we had suddenly just appeared.

"Are you two done now?" the woman asked and the man let a wry smile slip onto his lips.

"Of course," he glanced over at Beast Boy who glared at him but sent an adoring look at the woman. "You were right as usual, he was much easier to deal with as a child." Beast Boy shot him a dirty look.

"Are you ready my son?" the woman asked and Beast Boy looked at the tower behind him for a moment and I sensed him almost saying good-bye then he looked at me and sighed.

"I am ready to take the tests." he said and the woman nodded.

"Well my son then there is only one thing left for us to do here." she looked at the tower. "the council gathers to judge but the family gathers to watch, to witness..." she said softly and I watched as slowly one by one the rest of the team appeared around us. "Child of the future," she said as Cyborg appeared beside me looking both confused and at the same time seeming to understand. "Son of shadows," Robin appeared on my other side. "Daughter of Cousin Distant." Starfire appeared blinking looking around at all of us. The woman looked at me a small smile upon her features, "White Raven, my dark daughter." she looked at everyone meeting their gaze. "These are the witnesses the partial watchers," she held out her hand and Beast Boy placed his in it. "Now the tests begin." and we all vanished in a flash of light.


	9. Tests prt5

Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titan's or this song but the plot and non-Titan Characters are mine.

Note: The POV changes between Raven and Beast Boy.

Chapter 4

_In every creature_

_In every star_

_In your reflection_

_They live in you_

I opened my eyes and blinked in confusion trying to understand how we had suddenly appeared here and where exactly here was. It felt as though we were underground in a cave but I couldn't see either the walls or the roof. Before us was a giant pool of water smooth as glass. The strange man and woman were gone and it was only us. Beast Boy stood looking at the pool warily and his face was closed in trepidation. He had some idea of what was about to happen and it was making him nervous and a little edgy. Robin looked around as though he was puzzled to be here and looking at him and Cyborg I could tell that they both had the same little nagging feeling in the back of their minds that they knew this place deep in their bones they recognised it and it wasn't an altogether comfortable feeling. Starfire was simply looking around in confusion. She obviously had no idea where we were or what was going on. I almost envied her.

"Beast Boy what is going on? Why are we here and who was that woman?" Robin said focusing on our green team mate. Beast Boy's shoulders sagged a little and he turned to us.

"You need to ask that Robin? You honestly need me to answer that?" his eyes were wary and bruised, the shadows that had never seemed to touch him revealed themselves in the emerald orbs. He rolled his right shoulder as though trying to settle himself, preparing himself for some task that lay ahead.

"It would be a help yes." Robin answered taking his feelings out on his friend for lack of a better target. Beast Boy sighed and turned away from us once more and flopped onto the dirt floor.

"Think Robin what was your first thought when you all saw her?" Robin's eyes narrowed.

"Powerful, she was incredibly powerful." he said reluctantly to the green teens back.

"I'd met her before somewhere." Cyborg said simply, then his human eye narrowed, "I just can't remember where."

"You have Cy, Robin and Raven probably feel the same way." he'd dropped his head and looked abandoned and miserable.

"I do not feel as though I know her." Starfire spoke up and took a step towards Beast Boy then hesitated. "Why is that?" she asked and Beast Boy raised his head again and looked to the pool.

"Because you aren't from this planet Star. You came from a place different then Earth. Life evolved under a different set of rules on your planet. Earth took a more hands on approach." he said the last sentence not much more then a whisper fading off to nothing at the last word.

"You're not making any sense Beast Boy. Who is she?" Robin demanded to frazzled to think clearly. Something had obviously thrown him for a loop and he couldn't manage to get back on. Finally I spoke as the answer came to me like a ancient memory.

"Think for a moment Robin. She has something to do with Earth and nowhere else. The three of us feel as though we've met her before. Think." I said turning to him for a moment, "What force could transport all of us to who only knows where and yet we recognise that we've been here before." I felt a presence enter the room and turned to face the woman. "Mother Nature." I said softly and she gave us a small smile.

"Some know me as that yes." she walked forward and Beast Boy turned his head to watch her. She moved with a silent grace as though she was one with the earth so when she stepped it made no noise, even the air hung undisturbed at her passing. There was a power around her but it was passive power, a power that hung like a calm serenity cloak and stilled everything that fell within it.

"Wha, but I thought that was only a story?" Cyborg said watching her warily. The woman turned to him and smiled softly.

"Where do you believe that the stories came from, why does every culture on every continent have the same belief that there is some greater power, a being that is more then them?" she chuckled softly when Robin and Cyborg had no reply. "You see me in this form because that is how your own instincts interpret how I must be. But in other times in other places I have been many things." she gave us all a soft smile. I felt myself relaxing I couldn't find any malice within this woman. Suddenly there was another presence in the room and we all turned to see the man who had fought with Beast Boy enter.

He was unchanged from how he'd been in the dream, he moved with a flowing lethal grace. His hair hung silver and his eyes glitter that pale tiger blue with only that single gold fleck marring their purity of colour. Where the woman's power was passive his was almost volatile. Flickering within him testing a level control that reduced me to awe. I'd longed to have that kind of control over my powers and somehow this man did. He watched us with a distrustful gaze and I shivered as it passed over me and Robin glared right back.

"Don't mind him," the woman spoke softly, "he'll only harm you if he decides you're a threat to me." she said softly and Beast Boy looked at her, his gaze never leaving her form as though she was the anchor that held him here. She looked at Beast Boy and spoke softly in a language that I felt tug again at memory as though I knew what she was saying but at the same time I had forgotten it. Beast Boy raised his shoulders then dropped them almost with a shrug and at the same time let out a breath. The same flowing slightly musical language slid from his lips more naturally then English and they conversed for a moment and I realised that inside the strange words was a shadowy undertone that said this same language used in anger would strike terror into a mortal heart. Finally the woman nodded and the two hand she had clasped loosely at her waist were raised before her palms inward and slender fingers nearly touching then she spread them wide as though embracing the invisible.

A single call tolled through the chamber and the closest I'd ever heard to it was a beautiful silver bell that had tolled only once on Azerath. The silence that followed was even purer then the first sound. Within my thoughts I could almost see the results of the summon even though I didn't know what she was calling. Animals would have frozen for a moment prey and predator standing side by side listening to messages within the silence. The wind would have stopped everything on earth would have froze in place for that soundless thunder. In the cities of the world millions of people would have suddenly stopped and looked towards the direction that it had come from curiously unable to understand what it was everyone else heard. Even the insects buzzing in the air and crawling on and in the earth would have stopped to listen. Plants would turn flowers and leaves also as though dreaming minds within them sought to listen before returning to sleep. What I didn't know was what would happen when the tail end of the thunder passed. What kind of message would it leave behind?

I was broken out of my reverie as shadows gathered around the edges of the cavern. They were backlit silhouettes some that I recognised and others I'd never dreamed of. The black shadow of a lion and lioness came forward as did the towering neck of a giraffe. A bull stood in the shadows to my left and two wolves stood closest to us. I turned around and realised that it seemed as thought every form of life that wandered the planet was in the room with us. At the back of the crowd creatures that seemed larger then life loomed, lost rulers of an age long past. A T-Rex, a Sabre-toothed tiger and strange creatures archaeologists had never seen before. I swallowed as a snake slithered to the front of the crowd and insects littered the fringes.

"My Children," the woman spoke and I realised that this was what the summons had been for. "The day has come, the Cub will take the tests, will you stand judge and jury for him as you have for those that came before." I stared in awe as every one of them bowered their heads. I saw then for the first time the birds that sat above the crowd watching with interest. But still as the others, only silhouettes. "To find his place he's come before you, with us here are the Family, the partial watchers that will witness. You know them, do any object?" she asked and again not a creature contradicted her, here she cast a look at the man that seemed to say I told you so. Then she turned back to the crowd of creatures. "I present the Cub." she looked over at Beast Boy who rose and walked the five paces to her hesitantly. When he reached her side she placed a hand upon his shoulder and spoke to him yet the words were for the creatures. Again they were in that strange language but this time they translated themselves for my ears.

"Do you swear to follow the laws my son?" she asked.

"Yes great Mistress. You're laws are mine." he replied.

"Do you accept the brethren judging you?" again Beast Boy agreed.

"You're children are more worthy then I Great Mother."

"Will you accept the judgement of your Brethren?" Beast Boy closed his eyes and took a deep breath then looked up at them and spoke softly.

"My Brother and Sisters shall be my Jury, my own actions my judge." the woman allowed a smile to slide onto her lips then she looked again to the crowd.

"What do you say my children." the noise was deafening as every creature let out a howl, roar, or whatever sound was theirs to make. The woman smiled and nodded as the sounds faded.

"Then let the Tests begin." she said. It was a proclamation and it was what we'd all been brought here for. She turned still keeping her hand on Beast Boy's shoulder and made a motion for us to come forward which we did and we all stared at the reflections that were revealed to us in the still crystal clear waters of the pool.

Robin's reflections wasn't of him but of a dark shadow, red scars crisscrossed it but it stood strong and defiant in the face of danger his soul tossed its head at the challenge. Cybrogs revealed a tall black skinned boy with glowing blue eyes and a easy smile, his soul was just as powerful as ever even partially encased in titanium. The power in his blue eyes was that of a warrior the same as the one that had defied Brother Blood. Starfire's soul revealed itself as a warrior queen, a circlet upon her brow and a bow in hand, sewn into the soft fabrics of her dress was a strange symbol I didn't recognised but appeared faintly Tammarian yet uniquely belonged to the golden eyed, sapphire haired, woman. I took a deep breath and glanced at my own reflection. What sort of soul would mine be revealed to be?

A version of me stood clothed in white while darkness flashed around it, unable to touch it yet hiding it from view. "_You are not the evil you believe yourself to be dark daughter. You are a child of one of my fallen children and true his blood runs in you but your soul shall never belong to your sire. You've proved it by banishing him back to the hell that he's created for himself. Stay strong. You have earned the life you live…" _My violet eyes flew over to the woman but stopped when they saw the soul that laid in the water as well. A gangly teen small for his age with bloody red hair and pale celtic complexion stood there. His sapphire eyes grabbed mine for a moment then the teen melted down to a small child less then fire years old but I knew the spark in those eyes. Then the boy faded down and a ebony wolf rose in it's place it's eyes flashing gold then it was gone as well and a formless emerald wrath oozed malice then the teen was back and I saw the will in the sapphire eyes that was so well hidden I barely saw it. Though I'd never seen the like of it before I knew what it was. Beast Boy's soul was a survivor. I raised my eyes for the pool and watched as the green teen took a deep breath then he raised his eyes took a last look at all of us and dove into the pools clear crystalline depths…

… I opened my eyes to see that I was no longer in the room with a pool instead it was a room softly lit by an indistinct light source. Robin, Cyborg and Star were curled up on their own pallets. I rose and shook my violet head then tiptoed out. The mother was where we had left her hours ago watching the Tests Beast Boy was taking in a small bowl that held a portion of the pool waters. I took my customary place next to her and leaned forward to look in the waters as well. He had been in there for three days now and I learned that nothing was as it seemed in this place. I'd had nothing to eat or drink in the time I'd been here and also the sneaking suspicion that time wasn't really passing. At the same time all I had to do was look in the bowl to see that wasn't the case for Beast Boy. The details of what happened were always foggy within my mind and when I asked her about it she simply gave a soft smile and said that we would each only remember what our hearts deemed worthy of remembrance. Time wherever that pool had led Beast Boy was absolutely flying, in the last three days he'd aged nearly thirty years and I had the feeling that he had lived everyone of those days. The Tests didn't just test the body and mind they tested the soul in a way I'd never be able to understand. They felt out and searched for every crack every strength and every weakness, and they exploited it and followed it till they couldn't anymore. Then they found a new one.

I sat and watched intently following every motion Beast Boy made. His hair hung thick and heavy around his head his body was no longer a teen's or rather, as I'd come to realise, a child's. He appeared somewhere between his mid twenties to his mid thirties but his eyes held all the years his body didn't show. He'd fashioned himself a strange type of clothing more like a pair of primitive leggings with a loin cloth they hugged the well developed muscles of his legs and butt. Not the over defined under used muscles like a body lifter and even though I hated to say it like Robin and Cyborg. No these muscles were from simple necessity, honed down and toned by the miles and labours of each new day. I knew there were many things that were happening, undercurrents that I couldn't fathom. In silence I watched as the images blurred out before my eyes and I looked at the Mother curiously.

Only to find her staring at me expectantly. Her ancient golden eyes glittered softly with knowledge and a sharp intelligence tempered softly with understanding. I looked at her then glanced away. Looking into her eyes was unnerving as though she was listening directly to my soul and there were no secrets.

"You had a question?" she asked simply and I looked up at her feeling a blush slid across my face to my mortification which only added to the colour.

"I can't hide it from you can I?" I said simply and her lips slid into an easy smile but she didn't reply.

"I was just having a few more questions about everything." I told her softly. "He isn't like us is he?" I told her gathering my courage.

"No, he's not. None of my children have been like him before and none will ever be again. That's why he must take the tests. He is something that evolution didn't count in it's formula."

"That dream I had, the night before. You sent it to me?" I asked her and she tilted her head to one side.

"You mean the two visions? Yes I sent you the first one. But the second wasn't my gift." she replied and I narrowed my eyes.

"If you didn't send it who did?" a semi-familiar aura slid against my back and I knew. I turned around to meet the blue eyes of the man. He smiled revealing slightly over pointed canines.

"You did." I said softly answering my own question. The man gave me a considering look then glanced over at the woman and I felt a message pass between them.

"I think you can answer this one." the woman leaned back and I saw again the challenge that had been in her eyes. She was in charge but they worked as a duo and he was as powerful in his own way. He snarled at her then looked over at me.

"I know the pup better then _she_," he stressed the word and gave the woman a glare, "gives me credit for. In order to finish the tests the pup must find the meaning, the reason he is." he glanced at the bowl then at the woman momentarily distracted. "He's close isn't he?" the woman nodded.

"He's always known it in a way he merely needed to tests to aid him in proving it to the rest of him." she looked up at me, "for him to believe that he was worthy of it." the man looked at the bowl again as though he could see through the mists that hid Beast Boy from my sight.

"Anyway in order to leave he needs to have an anchor on this side of the pool. I merely nudged your thoughts the proper direction." he shrugged. I had no idea what memory you picked up from him till you saw it. I never expected him to remember _that_ conversation." the woman chuckled.

"You never did give him credit."

"That's because he's an idiot." the man snapped back and the woman let out a whoop of laughter.

"No he's just got enough Human in him to try your patience and make him far more curious then anything else. You've never had the patience." the man snorted but I knew that that the woman was right. Though I thought that Beast Boy was rather prone to the stupid as well.

"That's all I can say. It's not time for the rest." the man snapped and giving the woman on final glare disappeared.

"Is he always that testy?" I asked her and the woman chuckled again.

"No child, he's always been like this when someone takes the tests. You see he's typically male and to our female minds inexplicable. He's over protective of the children even the ones he doesn't get along with. They're all his after all and the Cub is different." she trailed off and I looked at her with interest.

"How?" I asked and the woman met my gaze and her eyes flared.

"You tell me." I drew back in surprise at her tone then my eyes flicked back and forth over the ground as I struggled for an answer somehow compelled to reply.

"Because.. Because…"

** flash **

**-"Our blood! You gave him our blood!" the man interrupted and the woman's eyes narrowed on his in annoyance-**

** flash **

"He's literally your child. That's why he can change into animals, you gave him some of your own blood." the woman leaned back a satisfied smile on her face.

"Yes. That is why he's different. Why there will never be another like him. Few souls in the world could draw our gaze from the millions to their one. And never in 8 millennia have circumstances and fickle chance placed a soul of that select group into a situation that made what happen possible. It will not happen again. He is now that last of that particular genetic family that made it possible."

"What do you mean? You're saying that there was something in Beast Boy's DNA originally that let you, give him your blood." the woman nodded.

"Only two separate families held the single flaw in their DNA that allowed it. In the Cubs case his Great Grandparents joined the two strains. The strain was particular. It could only be passed down from a holder to child. If a child was born without the flaw then no children of theirs would carry it and only one child was born with it. The Cubs Grandfather held it. Then his mother. She was an only child, when she married his father the strand should have been overwhelmed but circumstances around the Cubs birth made it possible for the strain to stay with him."

"What circumstances?" I asked and the woman gave a sad smile.

"In the womb a babies DNA develops with the fetus, the strand controlling everything from when the baby kicks to birth marks. The cub was born three months early. He barely made it and it was that early birth that allowed the strand to survive. It was suddenly forgotten about while his mind and body struggled to survive." she looked back at the bowl. I did too as Beast Boy appeared again in the water and I realised that he'd aged even more…

… I shifted in my sleep a presence pushing uncomfortably against my aura. When the discomfort continued I reluctantly awoke and froze when I opened my eyes directly into that of a Siberian tiger. Seeing I was awake the tiger jumped off the bed and shifted into the form of the man.

"Come." he said simply and started out of the room, none of the others even twitched as he passed by them. I looked at them curiously then followed him out before I was even aware of having decided to. He led me to the strange wooden doors at the end of a large corridor. I stopped behind him faintly remembering entering through them when we'd been taken from the big cave and pool. The doors swung open before him and I followed as he swept into the room with the wary confidence of a seasoned warrior. The mother was standing by the edge of the pool and the myriad of animals still circled the room. She looked at me and then at the man.

"Raven, Dark daughter, Hope." she said softly as though presenting me to the crowd. I looked around curiously wondering what was going on. The Man pressed a hand to my lower back and propelled me none to softly across the room to the woman. She must have seen the questions in my eyes because she gave a encouraging smile and spoke softly to me.

"The tests are done. It's time for the cub to return. It is usually decided by the brethren who retrieves him. They've called on you dark daughter, will you retrieve your friend?" she asked and I froze then looked at the pool.

"Why me?" I asked softly not seeing why I should be the one to do it.

"Because it is their will. They may tell you after but their reasons are each their own. You will do it won't you?" she asked and I looked at the pool once more then swallowed my nerves and quelled the doubts and nodded.

"Yes, I'll do it." the woman nodded and met the mans eyes then stepped to the side giving me a clear path to the crystal waters behind her.

"Kneel on the edge." she instructed and I did as she bid and again the image of my soul leapt up and the white clad woman stood easily in her bubble of darkness. She knelt beside me and spoke softly. "Have you wondered what it means?" I knew instinctively that she was referring to my reflection.

"Yes, but I don't understand it." I told her and she gave a soft smile.

"The blackness the surrounds it represents the taint from your fathers touch and the dark magic you were born with. The woman clad in white is you. It is the proof if you accept it that you are not the evil being that you mistakenly believe yourself to be. See the white, that represents both goodness and serenity." she looked up from the water and gazed at me forcing my eyes to meet hers.

"Clever and powerful you name sake may be but like you, it is never truly evil unless it believes it's self to be. You defeated your father, stopping the prophecy and shattering his only hope into coming into this world." she tenderly brushed a strand of hair away form my face behind my ear, "You were the gateway and for choosing to stay locked I bless you. While your powers are still as they always were, remember that true serenity only comes from accepting all emotions as what they are, responses that can't be repressed or controlled merely worked around." her smile was soft and sad.

"Now look into the water and call him with your thoughts. Project yourself diving into the image that you see there." I turned back to the water and my image shifted to look at me then smiled encouraging and confident. I looked hard and saw the second image behind my own. The shifting landscape of the world Beast Boy had gone to. I felt my consciousness slip out of my body and I dove into they water to get him…

… I looked up at a soft step approaching my fire. A scent was in the air, something totally foreign that I knew the likes of which had never trod upon this land before. My skin prickled at their approach. All my senses rushed to try and place this new occupant. I hadn't spent the last two hundred years in the place to not learn anything. My left hand shifted into a claw and I prepared to fight or run depending who was coming. They were coming for me this I somehow understood, if not whether they were friend or foe. They paused at the edge of the firelight I could see their outline but even with my eyes improved vision I couldn't see any of their features. They were slender and I understood a femininity that belied the slightly masculine build of their shoulders that placed an adolescent, not yet full grown. A growl grew in my chest unconsciously as this newcomer made me uncomfortable. They made a noise that caused my memory to flicker and I tilted my head curiously recognising that they were unsure as well. I struggled back through the ages searching for the memory that had recognised the sound they'd made. "_Beast Boy?"_ the two words brought an image to mind. Slowly I thought hard for the words to come from the own throat.

"Who is there?" I asked surprised softly by the depth of my voice. The form stepped into the moonlight at the edge of the forest and I understood in a moment who they were and why they were here. "Raven?" I said in wonder and rose, my hand shifting back easily. She was slightly transparent as though she wasn't truly in front of me. The wind rose and doused the flames casting the night into the stark bounds of black and moonlit silver. The silver slid like a caress over her pale cheek and as I watched her body filled out and expanded as time around her bloomed and she aged from girl to woman. Her hair fell to waist in a long luscious violet curtain and she was clothed in a white moon blessed shift. It hung off her shoulders clinging coyly to the swell of her breasts then tauntingly over her hips. It fell to her knees sleek and alluring. She glanced down at herself and her expression said that suddenly ageing into adulthood hadn't been mentioned to her. "Raven what are you doing here?" I asked her forcing my eyes up to her face. She looked at me and gave a small smile.

"It's time for you to come home." she said and I watched achingly, she was so beautiful… I held out a hand to her and she looked at it for a moment then placed her own in it. It was so small, pale and delicate in my big palm. I drew her close and for the first time truly noticed the changes that had been wrought on me.

I stood a close six feet and was broader in shoulders then Robin would ever be yet not as bulky as Cyborg. I possess almost a dancers build and when I bowed my head forward slightly to look at Raven, who nestled against me, both of us were unsure what was going on. I hugged her close relishing the first contact I'd had with another creature since I'd dove into the pool. Sure the prey I'd hunted since then had been comforting and the packs of animals I had run with had been security but with Raven was the first time I realised how alone I'd been. I let her go, the muscles in my arms rippling with the movement. She tilted her head back then looked around then back at me.

"Swear to god you never tell anyone what I'm about to do?" she asked and I tilted my head curiously as my own lips twitched, she seemed to be considering something that was nagging at her thoughts.

"I swear." I told her and she nodded then put a hand behind my head and pulled it down as she gave me a quick kiss on the lips she pulled back a hair's breath then said softly.

"I missed you. Now lets go home." she took her hand away and held it out to me. I placed mine in it my head still reeling. It quickly settled itself as the air around us warped and suddenly I wasn't there anymore…

"Welcome back Cub." The woman said and I opened my eyes and stood up from where I had kneeled at the edge of the pool. Beast Boy kneeled down before the woman in all his feral glory. I quickly looked down at myself and let out a breath of relief to see that was back in my own body and no longer the woman who'd fetched Beast Boy. Beast Boy was still in that adult flesh and I realised that the other Titans were with me now, how they'd gotten there I didn't know. Beast Boy answered the woman softly in that strange lilting language that the two of them had used before.

"Look up at me my child." Beast Boy did as he was told his eyes were gold now where they'd once been green. The Woman raised her arms to the crowd. "What is thy judgement my Children?" she asked and suddenly a strange haunting call rose from them, a blending of each and every sound they made into something far more beautiful and majestic. She smiled and softly a golden light gathered around her mingled with the silver blue of he man next to her, slowly as though reluctant to leave it's watery home a emerald green began to rise from the pool as it brushed past Beast Boy it snapped and crackled taking on hints of red. The three colours collected in the woman's hands and the raw power of it took my breath away and I stared in awed silence.

"The Brethren have spoken, they are unanimous, welcome my son. I give you the gift of yourself." the energies had concentrated into a roiling ball and it suddenly expanded and encased Beast Boy head to toe. I watched as the faint outline visible within the chaos began to shrink and twist as the energies shifted to form like a second skin over his body. Only it was no longer the body of a man, the years and maturity seemed to melt off his bones revealing the form of the small teen that we knew so well. The energies gave him the appearance of a spirit merely captured and holding a chosen form then they began to absorb into his skin till only Beast Boy remained looking for all the world that he had never dove into the pool and we had just arrived. Even his uniform clad the slender body as though it had never left. His head was still bowed and his eyes closed. The only difference was his hair, once forest emerald and close cropped now hung in a loose shag around his face and the odd strand flickered red and rose up as though something was running through them then they too went dark green and were still. Beast Boy swallowed and looked up at the woman who gave him a benign smile and spoke softly in that strange lilting language. Beast Boy's response was less then a hairs breadth later. He laid his head upon her knee and she rested a hand upon his hair and he was looking at me when the final change happened.

His incredible emerald eyes that always played with an inner fire dilated and softly gold the same shade as the woman's eyes rose from their depths then faded back. Except for a tiny sliver, which nestled contentedly in his left eye. The woman looked at me and her eyes glowed with remembered power. "**_You have passed your test as well daughter… You have proven yourself worthy…"_** Before I could consider what she had meant Beast Boy closed his eyes and softly murmured to the woman. She waved one hand gesturing to the millions of occupants in the cave with us.

"The tests are over. I present the Cub, once the child of all and the child of none, now the child off all and the child of one…" Beast Boy rose and looked around and every creature bowed their head in homage. Then the woman looked at us and gave a smile once more. "Thank your for witnessing my children. You may go home now." With a flash we were gone.


	10. Tests prt6

Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titan's or this song but the plot and non-Titan Characters are mine.

Note: The POV changes between Raven and Beast Boy.

Chapter 5

_(womans voice)_

_Into the water_

_Into the truth_

_In your reflection_

_They live in you…_

I opened my eyes and looked out over the cool waters of the ocean. I was curled up on a large boulder outside the tower. The sun was just cresting the waters and I looked behind me half expecting my vision to come true but the glass windows of the tower only reflected the dawning of the new day. I looked around but none of the others were there, I was alone outside and already the events that had felt hazy, during the tests were already fading from my thoughts. I struggled to grasp them, to remember but they slid through my fingers like wisps of clouds. A warm hand rested on my shoulder and I looked up to see Beast Boy looking down at me. His expression was strangely serious and his hair hung in a loose shag which looked quite fitting. The gold fleck in his eye glittered in the dawn light but it didn't stand out as I thought it should have.

"You'll remember what's important Rae. To push it is useless. We'll be the only ones." I looked up at him curiously.

"It, it just doesn't seem fair. How were we to witness what we can't remember?" I asked him and he sat down beside me. I noticed the sea water running our of his hair in light trickles and he looked out at the water.

"You're souls will remember, not the mind. It's their way, always has been. After all Rae in a way it never happened. No time has passed, they took us with them at dawn and they returned us at the same exact moment." he looked at me. "I've lived out a whole life time in my soul for the tests and yet not a moment passed. The Tests are just another part of history, able to fit in wherever necessary." he looked at the water and I closed my eyes confused.

"I still don't understand." I told him and he was silent then tapped my shoulder and pointed at a still pool of water below us. I looked down and my mind registered that the stillness wasn't possible since the waves seemed to roll on around it. Then I saw two images. The woman surrounded by eternal darkness and the teen who now lounged back against the midnight wolf one eye on both wolf and teen emerald green. Behind the souls of Beast Boy and I stood a woman with golden eyes and a man with a tiger cape. "They're in our souls now?" I asked him and he smiled and said softly.

"Into the water, into the truth, in the souls reflection they live in you…" he murmured softly and I leaned my head against his shoulder as the images faded and I truly understood what had happened and realised that it was true. It wasn't possible to understand these events with the mind, only the soul could decipher it. The tests only revealed the reasons to answers the soul knew for the mind. Nothing more, and nothing less, a gift without value.

"Maybe just this once I don't need to understand." I muttered and Beast Boy laughed.

"That's the way to think of it Rae. The answers just lead to more questions." He rubbed his hands together and looked at me and I raised my head self consciously wondering what was coming over me. First that kiss then just now, I shot a look at where the pool had been but the waves had claimed it once more.

"I'm blaming it on them." I said through gritted teeth and Beast Boy wiggled his eyebrows.

"Maybe it's just my cute factor reaching you. Don't deny it." I rolled my eyes and stood up.

"Hardly Beast Boy. Hardly." I started up the path towards the tower but paused and looked back at him. "Beast Boy out of curiosity," I pointed to my left eye, "what does this make you?" he paused and looked down at the ground then back up to me.

"I don't know yet Rae. We'll find out in time but for now, for now I'm just another set of eyes." I nodded as though that made sense and started up to the tower. I didn't know it but more then just Beast Boy's eyes followed me. A white clad form slid into my shadow and closed her eyes in contentment melding into my shadow and happily removing a dark weight from my soul…

… I watched Raven leave then looked back to the restless rolling waters of the ocean. The tests were over and my future was still uncertain but I smiled softly as the nagging feeling that something had been missing was gone. In it's place was a gold, blue/silver, green/red ball. Instinct was a beautiful thing. I rose and brushed off my hands then shifted into a flacon and flew up to the roof to take a short cut to my room.

After over a million years of evolution and sitting passively on the sidelines the mother and father hand managed to finally blend a part of humanity with instinct and created the third of their order… the third and the final… their true child, one who would live as long as they would and yet was physical to their omnipresent conscious. In the depths of the earth a cave with a silver pool dwelled underneath Mt. Kiliminjaro, a woman looked up from the pool with a smile as the waters faded away taking the image of the violet haired gothic girl with them...

A.N. - Thanks for reading this I've put plenty of time into this and I hope you've enjoyed it. I know I said that "Awake at Night" was for one shots but I originally wrote this as a oneshot but it evolved on me and I didn't think anyone wanted to read all 26 pages at once so I broke it down. Anyway this is the end of it I hope that you've liked it. Here's a few quick notes on it: 1) If you didn't catch on the lyrics at the start of each chapter were off the Lion King -They live in you. If you don't know the song watch the movie. 2) This was written originally as a Prequel to a story that's sitting in my head at the moment. Review and let me know it I should continue it. (It'll be under it's own title) 3)This is my rendition of Beast Boy's history I swear that the Mother and Father are copy-right so no flinching! (not that you honourable readers and authors would do that but you never know who else might be out there… close up of eye I'm watching you…) 4) Alright I'm done so read and review!


	11. The Gift

A.N. Alright I'm not mad I'm not mad. Just because I posted 5+ chapters and didn't get a single review I won't say a word… grumbleUngratefulLittlegrumble… Anyway I originally wrote this as a prolouge but the story just won't come so I'll send it out here as a oneshot. Give me some feedback on it this time! Even if it's just an anonymous review that says "Piece of crap" Give me something that says you're out there. I know you are!

Disclaimer: Don't own the Titan's if I did I would sooo know their characters and personalities better.

The lighting crackled around the tower dancing over the white crested waves that heaved farther out in the ocean. On a small island stood the gigantic T that had become synonymous with justice in Jump City. Once home to the Teen Titans the group had changed their name when the first of their members had turned 20 two years earlier. Now they were known merely as the Titans but other then a name very little had changed about the inhabitants of the tower, which the public was aware of in any case. The five Heroes did have some secrets though that they didn't dare allow becoming public knowledge. In the large common room a tall and slender young man stood staring out over the turmoil of the ocean thinking how fitting it was that only the tower on it's island stood between the city with it's occupants and the tempest approaching. Much like the inhabitants did on and daily basis and had done so for over seven years now. He dropped his head against the cool glass of the window his black hair hung below his chin and swayed forward. He had just begun to grow it out and periodically it still annoyed him with its length and tempted him to cut it short once more but the innate stubborn streak in him refused to give in to it. He wore all black now instead of the red, green and yellow that had once been his choice of costume. The bundle of blankets that he had clutched to his chest shifted as though sensing that his thoughts had wandered away from it. A small smile teased his lips and he stood up straighter and used one un gloved hand to tickle the soft pink chin. The bond between father and daughter ran deep and true as did the love from the heroes great heart. He looked out into the rain, pulled back in time by the gentle tug of a memory.

_It had been a sunny day when it had happened. One of his passing girlfriends, the ranks of which seemed to move in and out of his life with a stunning impossible speed, contacted him. She needed to see him desperately and it had to be now. She was at the corner café by the airport. He didn't have any excuse not to be there, and she assured him that he didn't want to discover the consequences of not showing up. He'd gone, his memories of Sophia were some of his fondest so there wasn't any way for him to avoid going to her. He had loved all the girls that he'd dated in one way or another, they all knew that they'd never be the one love of his life. Just one look into his eyes could tell any woman that. They'd all known that they'd always have to share his heart with another and the ones who couldn't handle the sharing had left. Sophia hadn't, she just gave him a sad smile and kissed him good-bye. Said she'd always love him but that he couldn't give her all the love she needed. He known it to, had hated it at the time but had loved her enough to allow her the freedom that she'd asked for. _

_He had walked into the airport and frozen in shock when he'd seen her. Her hair which he remember as being a thick luscious auburn had turn dull and thin. More mousy brown then beautiful, and her once curvy healthy figure had shrunk down to nearly nothing, as though the meat and flesh had simply melted off her bones. She'd given him a sad smile as he'd sat down and ruefully apologized for her appearance. She'd been diagnosed with a cancer, it was terminal and the doctors had given her a mere few weeks to live. She was going home to Australia and was scheduled to leave on a flight in half an hour but she had something to give to him before she left. Then she instructed him to close his eyes and had placed a blanket wrapped bundle in his arms. When he'd opened his eyes he stared into a matching pair of brown ones. The infant looked up at him curiously and blinked twice as it struggled to focus onto him. Then Sophie had explained._

_She'd found out two weeks after she had left him that she was pregnant. In a stupid fit of young pride she determined to have the baby alone and raise it herself. Two weeks after the birth she'd been diagnosed. She gave the child a small smile. She knew what it was like to be raised without a parent, without knowing who you were and she wanted better for her daughter. She'd named him the father on the birth certificate and all the information that he need was on it's way to the tower. She then pressed a soft kiss to his neck. She was dieing, probably wouldn't live till the end of the month. All she wanted so she could pass on in peace was his promise to take care of their daughter. He hadn't been able to deny her. He had barely been able to think. Suddenly the speaker blared the flight call and Sophie smiled and gently took her daughter back and gave the infant a soft kiss and a cuddle before replacing it in his arms. Then she left after telling him his daughters name. _

"Circe Robyn…" he trailed off reluctant to voice her last name but content with whispering it within his mind. He'd been raising her for over six months. All of them filled with chaos in the tower. Going from teenager to father had not been an easy change for him but at 20 he felt that he'd managed to do it fairly well. He looked out to the sea again, it was all in vain though. He closed his eyes tight against the pain in his heart at what he was about to do within the hour…

In another wing of the tower another Titan was doing much the same thing. Sitting up in her bed Raven held the newborn bundle to her breast. The love and well of emotion within her that had been to long denied had finally found an outlet. While her own daughters beginnings had been painful and at the time shameful and humiliating, holding her in her arms now made it seem like a distant unimportant past.

Captured and raped Raven had crawled back to the tower as nothing more then a shattered shell of the heroine that had left. It had been a long and painful journey but the support and help of the others had helped her back into herself. That and the knowledge that Beast Boy had shifted into the Beast upon hearing the news and hunted down the one who'd done it. It wasn't a secret that the two of them were proud to keep but deep down she felt glad for it knowing that a friend had cared that much. So much that he had broken his promise to protect all the people of Jump City to kill the one who'd raped her. Neither of them had ever mentioned it to Robin though they both suspected that he knew. After all, if Robin felt it suspicious he'd have to report it and both Raven and Beast Boy felt that the mans death was justified. Raven held her daughter tighter at the memories of the fear and worry that followed the discovery that she was with child. So soon later Robin suddenly appeared with his own daughter that the entire tower had been flipped upside down. Though the inhabitants of Jump City never suspected a thing that was the way the Titans wanted it to be. In a way it made the event about to happen tonight easier on one level but at the same time it broke her heart even to consider it. But then, so did the consequences of what might happen if they didn't. She struggled against the emotion but couldn't hold it in and holding her daughter close to her began to sob in a way only a mother could understand. About to lose something so infinitely precious and yet so newly gained…

Robin looked up as one of the other Titans entered the common room. An old leather trench coat was on his back in place of his usual uniform. In fact if it hadn't been for his defining feature he would have been a stranger. He wore a old pair of faded jeans and a beige woollen sweater peaked out from under the trench coat. A pair of brown work boots with black souls and toe completed the change and he looked incredibly uncomfortable. He looked up and met his leader gaze and then looked away quickly. He wasn't happy with the decision that had been reached but he wasn't going to argue now. It was to late for it anyway and they were happier with this option then any of the others that they'd been able to think of. At 17 Beast Boy was the youngest Titan and in the last few years he had matured differently then anyone would have suspected.

Once the jester and prankster unable to be serious he had grown up taking a different path. He was still a prankster and enjoyed a good joke and a laugh more then the others but there was a different dimension to him now. He still kept up the idiot comic relief act but over the years the team had realised that is was simply an act. He didn't like anyone else to worry so had dedicated his time to keeping the others happy. He was selfless and trustworthy. Every now and then when he believed that he was alone he would sit down and stare out to sea or off into some middle distance all trace of humour and laughter gone from his form. He never said what it was that darkened his thoughts whenever he was asked but everyone knew that it wasn't happy thoughts.

"Robin I still don't think that-" he began when Robin walked up to him. But the Titans leader cut him off.

"Beast it's the only way." he said it gently and set the blanket wrapped bundle in the younger mans arms. The green teen looked at the bundle of blankets then up at his leader his emerald eyes pleading with him. Robin was resigned for what was to come but behind the steely self control and the white eye holes of his mask his hands longed to take back the charge he had just handed over. Beast Boy looked back down then he swallowed and looked up at Robin, his face grave.

"Why me Robin, why are you giving her to me?" the storm reached the tower and rain began to pound on the glass windows. The droplets cast running shadows that the lightning highlighted onto their faces.

"Because I trust you. I know you'll take care of her and you won't be suspected. When this new villain arrives like we know he will I don't want her anywhere in the line of fire." The both looked at the bundle as Circe stirred at her fathers voice. Neither knew how long they stood there when they looked up at the sound of footsteps. Cyborg walked in and paused in the doorway then he walked up to Beast Boy and Robin.

"Here's your ring BB. It charges automatically when you take it off so it should last as long as you need it to," the big black man said. At 22 he was the oldest Titan and was a surrogate big brother to all the Titans and a technological whiz. If he could think of it he could build it but right now he was wishing that he could have thought of something that might have stopped the events that had made what was about to happen necessary. He placed the small unadorned and simple ring in the shape shifters hand. It was similar to the one that he had used years back when he'd infiltrated the HIVE academy as Victor Stone, except that he'd been forced to tinker with it and had upgraded it making it smaller and less noticeable and the hologram that it projected more sensitive to the facial expressions and body language of the wearer. Beast Boy pocketed it and bit his bottom lip. The reluctance in his expression tearing at the big mans caring heart.

They all looked up as Starfire appeared and wrapped her arms around Beast boy. Tears flowing freely down her cheeks, and her hug strangely gentle, proof that she was aware of the small body between her and Beast Boy. She leaned down and brushed her lips over the little girls face in a final gift. Of all the Titans Starfire was the one who had adapted to the little ones living with them easiest. Star was almost the embodiment of motherhood and had taken to Robin's daughter as well as Ravens as though they were her own. It had been something that Robin had worried about most. After all he'd lost a large part of his heart to her the first day that he'd met her and they both knew it and yet they accepted that it could never be between them. He had still been unsure about how she'd react to the living proof of his unfaithfulness. Though he shouldn't have because Star never made a comment about it, merely accepting the child in her own boundless way. The tall red-haired alien took a step back and blinked rapidly trying to rid her eyes of the tears flowing from them. Slowly the soft pad of footsteps floated down the hallway. Everyone looked up as Raven appeared, having walked the distance from her room, trying to delay the coming event as long a possible. She held a bundle in her own arms as well, thick soft blankets bound the child within and a soft navy blue silk shawl was warped around the outside gold and silver stars adorning it and sewn in black silk thread so delicate as to be nearly invisible, were arcane symbols for protection, luck, blessings and a history that was uniquely hers.

Tears shimmered in her violet eyes as Raven entered the common room and looked up from her daughter. Beast Boy bit his lip and bowed his head for a moment then looked up at the sorceress. Robin shifted uncomfortably but the bond that ran from him to Raven allowed her to feel his own misery at this decision. It did only a little to ease the pain she felt. Softly she walked over to them. She was the shortest of the group now. Cyborg stood at an impressive six foot four and Robin at six one. Star was close to six feet as well but she appeared to have aged little otherwise. Next was Beast Boy and finally the sorceress. Everyone except Robin and Beast Boy were in their traditional costume and Raven let out a shaky breath and looked Beast Boy in the eyes. Raven brushed a kiss over her child's brow and whispered softly and the black threads of the blanket flared red then faded once more as she activated the enchantments with her own powers. Then she passed the bundle to Beast Boy. He took it reluctantly shifting both infants so that he could carry them safely.

"Take good care of her Beast Boy. Don't let anything happen to her." Beast Boy swallowed and nodded as a bolt of lightning tore through the sky.

"I won't Raven. I'll take good care of Oracle for you." Everyone glanced at Raven in surprise. She hadn't told them her daughters name yet but she'd told Beast Boy. Strangely as always she had seemed to find the perfect thing to say. Robin nodded and looked at Beast Boy.

"The money's in the account Beast Boy." He looked up as a small plane came in for a landing on the roof. "and Bruce is here with your ride. Take care." Beast Boy nodded then looked up at Raven who took a deep breath and with a few muttered words encased them both in a black sphere as she prepared to teleport them. "Take care Beast Boy. When it's safe, you can bring them back." Beast Boy nodded and then he was gone.

"Good bye, you little grass stain." Cyborg said softly, the playful insult bitter sweet on his lips as he realised that the tower felt emptier already.

"Farewell friend." Starfire spoke softly her voice shaking with the tears that she held back. Raven didn't say a word but it had seemed that she and Beast Boy had said everything that needed to be said between them and if nothing else, the single tear that trickled down the side of her face and the sudden snap of the computers behind them as her powers slipped said it all.

Together the four of them watched as the small plane disappeared into the storm weary skies none of them knew it's destination but their hearts all followed it long after it disappeared. All of them had lost something, as best friend, ad teammate, and a part of the only family that many of them had ever considered. For a long time the Titans remained standing till Robin picked up his communicator and pushed a button. Softly the yellow belt that sat abandoned on the top bunk bed in Beast Boy's room flashed once then went dead. Now they were four. The circle broken.

A.N- Alright that's it that's all. Review. Please. Please.

Note: If anyone cares or wants to know, Robin - 21

Raven - 21

Starfire - 20

That's it. Bye.


	12. Dreams pushing the rateing!

**Disclaimer: don't own the characters but the plot is mine**

**Rated T+**

A.N. All right now everybody I promised that I'd write some stories featuring Raven so here is my first exclusively Raven fic (have mercy). Reviews will determine whether or not I continue with Raven or go back to Beast Boy (that and whether or not I can get rid of this $&!# writers block)… I've had a review mention that the last few stories have had a certain lack of fluff and romance. Hopefully this will please you and just a warning note. THIS MAY BE PUSHING THE RATEING. IF YOU AT ANYTIME FEEL DISGUSTED JUST TELL ME TO RE RATE IT!

the story

**His mouth ravaged the side of my neck, teeth scrapping the tender flesh. Tongue and lips chasing the pulse that pounded through me. My back was pushed against the cold steel of the wall, head tipped back to allow him more access. He was straining against the chain of his control, his hands roaming over my body as though they had every right to what they sought to take. I didn't stop him. My entire attention was fastened on the rough magic that those hands left behind on my flesh. A deliciously, singularly feminine feeling of primitive satisfaction and power that I'd never been allowed to feel before swept through me. The power and satisfaction of knowing that **_I'd_ **brought this man to the brink with simply myself. He moved again this time his mouth settled over mine, his hands pausing, one hand fisted in my hair and the other resting at the useless barrier at the hem of the baggy T-shirt that I wore as a nightgown. **

**The kiss was dynamite. I felt my blood burst into flame to match the burn in my skin at the first contact then that reality faded away. Nothing existed but his lips on mine. Nothing but the waves of emotion that swept through my body, my mind helpless before onslaught. I was too wasted to even remember my name, remember why such acts as these had been forbidden. His kiss demanded surrender, demanded a response, it wasn't a kiss that asked it was rampant and hot. A kiss that branded me with its heat, he was claiming me as his and I felt in the back of my mind the knowledge that it was true. I'd been waiting my whole life for this moment, for someone who could awaken this response within my composure. I felt my bones melt and my shattered mind give to him. He felt it as well and the kiss eased, turned into a gentle melding of lips, a faint blending of souls. **

**My knees strengthened as his lips left mine following the line of my jaw up to my ear his whispering the words, satin soft against the pale shell in a deep rumbling baritone. "Mine all mine…" My blood leapt anew as I understood the implications of that. Suddenly my own hands moved from where they'd been, wherever that was, and roamed over his back. Delighting in the play of the muscles under the thin fabric of his shirt as they moved at my touch like molten steel. He pressed his body flush to mine his every movement eager. I squirmed and twisted under his hands as they renewed search while mine came around to his chest after a moment of torturous pleasure while his hands finally slipped under the shirt and touched my skin causing us both for freeze for a moment at the new sensation. **

**His hands were large, and the skin calloused from the rubbing of his gloves. I sucked in a breath and opened my eyes to look at his face. His bright eyes were watching me their expression unreadable and after a moment I brought my hands up to the buttons partially undone already down the front of his shirt. My fingers felt clumsy as I worked my way down the trail of buttons, keeping my eyes on his face as he watched me. When I reached the last button I dropped the two sides of the shirt bearing his chest to my curious fingers. I ran my palms over the wide expanse of skin, possibly the most I'd ever seen him bare and an almost feline purr of pleasure slid in my throat. He stood still allowing me to explore for a moment, the way a stallion allowed his mate to groom his neck. I glanced down to my hands wondering at the texture of the skin I touched. It wasn't like my own soft and thin. His was soft like a lion cub was plush, it felt thicker then my own human flesh yet at the same time it was inexplicably perfect. I flicked a thumb over a flat male nipple. **

**Instantly he reacted like lightning, tumbling me backwards where a large plush bed now rested where a wall had been. I didn't know how it was possible nor did I care as now, flat on my back, he loomed over me and feminine chills swept through my nerves in anticipation. With a predatory smile he pushed the shirt up to my breasts baring my flat stomach to his pleasure. His lips dipped to my navel and his nimble tongue painted a spiral around the small indentation. A pale pink scar on my hip was loved for a moment as his lips trailed downwards. I felt my thighs tremble but he left me waiting as he suddenly changed direction and pulled the shirt off over my head as my own hands discarded his to continue their wanderings. He looked down at me his eyelids low hiding his brilliant orbs from my sight with their thick fan of lashes. I was naked under him except for a pair of plain bikini cut white underwear but I doubted that I'd have those much longer. He on the other hand was still mostly dressed. I felt a smile curve my lips, an action that felt almost natural. **

"**I think I'd better hurry up." I said softly and he rolled us over so I was on top and he looked up at me.**

"**Be my guest the view is pretty good from down here." I shot him a dirty look but it ran off him like water off a duck. My hands made quick work of his belt buckle and it took only moments till he was naked as the day he was born on my bed and I was straddled across his thighs. He rolled again flipping me onto my back as his hands began to move once more, fast again and I eagerly accepted his speed. After this it was all fire and speed only flashes of impressions as my mind struggled to keep up with the sensations engulfing my body.**

**Lips on a tortured nipple -- Wide palms moulding the curve of my hip --Emerald eyes watching me as I shattered under the first gentle movement of questing fingers.** **I withered and allowed my hands to press against his own heated flesh seeking to brand him as I was being branded. Fingers clawing his back in demand for that act he continued to deny me as I flew once more. We rolled across the tumbled sheets teeth and lips wild, blood warring in that frantic haste of lust. Finally I felt him let go. I looked into his eyes and slithered against him wickedly tempting him as the civilised finally lost the battle with the feral. His hands left bruises now and his teeth were rougher, though still no blood did they draw. He rose over me like a lion come to take his mate and then he slid into me-**

I awoke in my room jerking upright, the sheets tangled so tightly around me that it felt as though they were going to strangle me. My pulse was racing and my dark powers whipped around the room in a frenzy now that I was awake and I quickly struggled to grab the emotions running through me. A baggy gray Tee shirt was tossed in a heap on the floor of my room and my powers flared once in shock then dropped off in silence. I put a hand to my chest and looked down realising that I was bare naked and I had no idea where I'd thrown my panties off in my sleep. I swallowed as the dream I'd just awoken from rolled into my thoughts in painful detail. I swallowed and summoned the shirt to me pulling it on over my tousled violet hair. I felt a wetness between my legs that made me let out a low annoyed growl in frustration. I hated that feeling. I hadn't had to put up with it since Malichor had been banished back into his damn book. The dream again rose before my eyes. …Looking up at the male who'd paused for a moment from ravishing my lips. His hair trousoulled and his features familiar yet blurry as though my mind had been making them up the only distinct feature the bright emerald eyes and the way his skin blends into the darkness of the room. The moonlight streaming through the window highlighting the matching green…

I buried my head in my hands closing my eyes in misery and swearing in frustration. "Damn you Beast Boy for not locking the damn door when you were in the shower." Sure walking in on the shape shifter may have been my fault for not knocking but I was more then happy to let the blame fall squarely on his shoulders for this embarrassing situation. I swore some more and untwisted the blankets gritting my teeth at the annoying chatter of my emotions in my head talkative now in my state of turmoil. I sprawled on the bed and stared up at the dark ceiling, the shadows of my room for once not soothing as my blood continued to race against my better judgement. As I drifted back to sleep I murmured softly. "Beast Boy… why… Beast Boy…"

**I walked into the living room a table set with simple white dishes tea steaming out of a cup. I looked around then started as I saw myself walk into the same kitchen dressed in a mans button up shirt the sleeves rolled back and my legs below bare. The green man stood at the stove cooking something. I sat down at the table while the second me walked up to the man and wrapped her arms around his waist a mischievous glimmer in her eye as she did it. This second me was older then I was, maybe ten yeas or so. The man was clad in only a pair of jeans and against my better judgement I had to admire the width of his shoulders and the hard muscles that moved easily. **

"**In answer to your question," a calm voice spoke from across from me and I jumped up startled to see wisdom seated opposite me sipping her own cup of tea. Her yellow robes rested easily over her shoulders in contrast to the blue I preferred. "Destiny. Not now in our time. Maybe not for another ten years or more." She inclined her head towards the couple standing by the stove sharing a tender kiss, "But one day Raven it will be. He calls to us. We call to him as well. Why or how it works we may never know but this is the world a part of you wanted. So this is the dream it crafted." Wisdom set her cup down and her violet eyes, mirror images of mine pinned me and a smile slid onto her lips. "Sweet dreams Raven." Then she was gone and I was wrapped in the mans arms.**

"**Something wrong Rae Rae?" he asked me looking at me through his deep emerald eyes, concern evident. Already I felt the conversation fading and I knew that by morning I wouldn't remember the dream either. I leaned back in Beast Boy's arms and looked up in his eyes. Was this my future? Life with Beast Boy? Yet, I could sense a maturity to him, a past littered with darkness that I hadn't been there to share. Was this the Beast Boy I knew, the Beast Boy my mind had created or someone who was yet to be? The answers suddenly didn't seem important. **

"**Nothing.** **Just thinking how it's best to make the moment last." I replied and flipped the burner off. He didn't miss the action. His eyes glowed and darkened.**

"**Hmmm, you may be right." He dropped his lips to mine and only the moment mattered.**

sweet dreams

A.N.- Alright I will freely admit that this ended up being slightly more um, graphic, then I'd thought and I sincerely hope that this isn't pushing the Teen rating too far. I hope… Anyway tell me what you think. I'm not entirely sure what to think about this but I thought it was an interesting take on their relationship.


	13. Fallin'

**A.N. Well hello again folks. Been awhile hasn't it. I guess I should probably introduce you to my newest creation. It's a songfic to Nickleback's song _Savin' Me_ off their new C.D. _All the Right Reasons_ (I don't own it) I think the circumstances are fairly self explanatory but if you don't get it tell me and I'll clarify it for you. Telling it here would wreck the plot.**

**Note: _Italic's _memory, bold lyrics, normal story, and _Bold Italics_ dream**

**Read on! **

**Disclaimer: Don't own the characters or the song. The plot however is mine.**

**Nickleback - Savin' Me **

We lost. The great unstoppable, ambitious human race had lost. We'd won the battle but had never stood a chance in the war. Once lush grasslands lay barren and parched cracks breaking the fragile soil, unchallenged wind whipping it up into the air. All of Earth looked like this now, the only life the odd hardy plant determinedly holding its ground, or the track of one of the many starving predators searching for a meal.

Cities were skeleton, glass windows echoing lost and broken dreams. Steel beams and towers swayed in the wind. Cars sat rusting on the curbs, and papers blew around like frolicking ghosts. Boney dogs wandered the streets now left for dead when their owners abandoned the city in search of some sort of safe haven. They were dangerous, not only reverting to more feral instincts but also lacking the respectful fear of humans that their wild brethren processed. Nothing lived in this city, in a toxic, garbage filled bay on a rocky island stood a giant tower, its proud windows shattered and the gleaming steel turrets and the hopes they represented were spotted with rust. It creaked ominously in a strong wind and ghosts danced through its corridors. Skeletons rested where they had fallen, a testament to the battle that its occupants had fended off before fleeing to safety with the rest of the population. Or so the world believed.

If one stood on the top of the tower you could see one of the safe havens that humanity had carved out for them-selves. The force-field around it shimmered with a soft silver blue light and the sky scrapers that it housed were as proud as those of the original city had been. On the roof facing this new city stands a statue. He is crouched down easily on the ledge the buffeting winds not even seeming to touch him. Gaze locked on the new city filled with a mixture of bitterness and anger causing one to wonder what artist reflected in its carving. Suddenly the wind gusts and a few locks of hair sway revealing that this isn't a statue at all, but instead, a man. He blinks then rises. His movements causing the dirt that coats him to loosen and shake off revealing emerald skin underneath. He is lean as a whip the harsh conditions out here having weathered him down to sinew and bone. Toned his body and tempered his mind so that if those who had once known him met him today they wouldn't recognise him. Under Nature's harsh rule he had thrived, being the only person capable of not only surviving the new climate but also the multitude of viruses and diseases that had bloomed up during the fighting, killing as many as the war had.

Sending a last look at the city in the distance he turned away and crossed the roof, either not noticing of refusing to acknowledge the rubble strewn around him. The once proud and bright black and yellow T off the inhabitants of this tower had been defiled by the elements and the war itself. When he reached the other side of the roof he stops and looks out over his realm. The crumbling walls and broken glass, broken dreams and the ghosts of memories and better days were his people now. None of his thoughts reflected in his eyes though, they were cold and hard as the land around him and the bitter as the wind blowing towards the sea. With a twist of his lips he shook his head and dove off the edge of the tower, the wind cynically cold on his cheeks as he surrenders to instinct and memory.

**Prison gates won't open up for me  
On these hands and knees I'm crawlin'**

_The teen was in the middle of the street, his body covered and dirt and blood, bruises marring his otherwise emerald features. Every muscle within his lean frame screaming from the stress and strain that he'd put them under for the inhabitants of this city, at the danger he'd gone into at the words of his leader. The street around him was cracked and broken, the stress of the unintended traffic, and the strange new alien climate taking their toll on the once pristine black pavement. Around him doors were open on buildings and windows were already broken. A dry dusty wind danced around him exploring the city behind him. Before him was a silver blue wall, on the other side was peace, and safety. Through the glow he could see them. _

_Them! The ones he had trusted the ones he had laid his life on the lines for. They were stepping out of the large black chopper that had just landed. As always _he_ was the first one off, glaringly bright suit ripped and torn and covered in dust. His mask was as it always was though even from this distance the teen could see the fatigue around his leaders' eyes. His usually gelled black hair hung limp and windblown around his face the odd curl daring to show itself and the owner to tired bother with it. Next was the alien. She wasn't from earth yet because of that her differences were acceptable in the almost medieval superstition that had infected the population. The green teen's blood roared at the injustice though it wasn't at her that his anger was directed. Third was a tall broad black man, his cbernetic parts glittered under the shields light. He too was acceptable to the people because he was an essence of their technology and the people understood that. Finally, her dark blue cloak wrapped tightly around herself the only indicator of self-consciousness she stepped out of the chopper. Her hood was up but he could tell by the body language that she was exhausted, both mentally and physically. _**  
Oh, I reach for you**

_The teen collapsed onto his knees in disbelief as he watched the choppers blades stop and the pilots crawl out of the cockpit. As the ground crews hustled to chain the chopper down, he stared on in disbelief while a part of his mind accepted that he known that they weren't coming back for him. It had been said in the sadness of the pilots' eyes when they'd taken off, and in the unease in the movements and motions of the mayor and police chief when they'd climbed aboard as well. A shout slid from his lips as he watched his family slowly disappear one by one into a waiting car and he dropped onto his stomach as the door was closed on them. Though no sound reached him through the shield his mind supplied the noise of a cell door closing. Tears filled his eyes and from his position on the ground his arm reached out, sore raw fingers held out in a plea that would never be answered as the car began to move away…_

…The man snarled at the memory and just before he hit the fast approaching ground, with a survival instinct that had lain unnoticed before his sentence, at the last possible moment his body blurred and a green eagle with a white head took his place. With an almost imperceptible tilt of the wings he changed directions, wingtips just brushing the surface of the water as he suddenly began to hurtle up.

**Well I'm terrified of these four walls  
These iron bars can't hold my soul in  
All I need is you  
Come please I'm callin'  
And oh I scream for you  
Hurry I'm fallin'**  
Riding the wind current the green bird soared over the abandoned husk of Jump City. As he flew his sharp eyes glancing over the rubble as well as the odd skeleton that still remained. He knew the destruction to well now and over the years he had come to take as little notice of it as he used to take of grass and trees. Suddenly he spotted what he'd been searching for, swinging around he circled once and then focusing in on it he shifted into the smaller more agile form of a hawk. He tucked his wings in close to his body and flew like a bullet towards the ground.

… "_Titan's Go!" a tall brunette called as the teens assembled behind him sprang into action. Over the sounds of explosions and blows the familiar comments slipped in and out as though they weren't fighting for their lives. _

"_Come on show Cy what you got!" a tall black teen said as he pummelled his fist repeatedly into his opponent. He was a both a close quarters and a range fighter but due to a lack of natural speed he preferred to use his sonic cannon but he was tough enough to take and give hits that were only second in strength to the alien girl above him that was their air support. She fought her battles above the ground in a deadly dance whether fighting close to her opponent of blowing them away with a well placed starbolt she was a fearsome sight. _

"_You chose a unfortunate time to harm our home." She said as she wove her way around the two robots who tried to shot her down. One landed a hit and the red-head fell to the ground momentarily stunned. She sat up groggily and quickly covered her head with her arms as they fired at her again. When the dust shifted they paused as they saw the black shield that was fading from around the alien beauty. The two robots hesitated confused when a voice came from behind them in an icy monotone._

"_No one hurts my friends." They turned to see a girl rise up and when she raised her head her eyes were glowed a searing white, "Azerath. Mentrion. Zinthos." She raised her arms and two boulders glowed black and rose from the ground crushing the attackers between them. _

"_Yo Dude, you need to take a bath." A small teenage boy said from the ground as he cast a smug look at the villain who turned to see who had spoken and was rewarded by being pushed off the bridge into the river by a large ram's boney horns where he exploded with the sharp crack of electricity in water. _

"_You aren't going to win." The brunette said as he danced in a deadly duet with his opponent, avoiding fatal blows with an uncanny speed. There was a muffled shout as the green teen was thrown a hundred yards down the bridge. He pulled himself onto his hands and knees and shook his head trying to clear it. He looked up and watched as his friends fought each with their own skills and each completely focused on the battle at hand. Once more he was the first one out of the fight..._

The hawk flared its wings and opened its talons wide catching the unfortunate rodent easily he took off without stopping simply flapping his wings and using his remaining momentum to change directions, the lifeless body clutched in the iron grip of his talons. He took to the skies searching for a suitable place to eat his meal.  
**Show me what it's like  
To be the last one standing  
And teach me wrong from right  
And I'll show you what I can be**

He dropped onto an abandoned roof top near the south side of town. From here he could over look the fire gutted shells of buildings that had once been homes and businesses. They'd been burned during the war, over a hundred houses gone in hours, putting over two hundred people, mostly families on the streets. That was when they decided to move people to the safe haven. That was when they had secretly begun the culling. Still in a Hawk form he began to tear at the rodent, devouring it quickly and efficiently, eating everything except a few scraps of fur and a few other things which were indigestible. The hawk hopped along the edge of the building then shifted back into a man sitting on the edge, feet dangling. He could feel another memory coming and with a sigh he pushed it away turning his face slightly into the prevailing wind, it rustled through his thick wild locks once a pure emerald they were now threaded with black and red. He leaned back on his elbows turning his face to the sun now sitting almost at its pinnacle, the warmth was comforting and he closed his eyes for a moment.

This was one of the few simple things that he took pleasure in anymore, a meal in his stomach, no matter how pitiful and the warmth of the sun on his face. There wasn't anything else to be had, he hadn't had any communication with a human in years except for the odd group of fighters that slipped out of the safe haven every now and then to collect data from the old city. Once in awhile they would contact him to do some scavenging for them if they believed that it would take some time to find the items. Time that they couldn't spend safely outside the shield without fatal side effects, effects he was immune to.

His lips twitched in a wry smile as he watched a tuff of fur from his meal dance away over the roof. He wasn't sorry for that. Over the years the people within the shield had taken to treating him like an animal, no better then a dog that spent all its time waiting to please its master. He was bitter and resentful about not being allowed to enter the city, about not being allowed to say good bye to his friends but it given the choice now he doubted that he would want to enter the shield now. He'd become accustomed to the harsh beauty of the lands encroaching on his empty city and as lonely as he was he wasn't worried about being alone. He had reluctantly begun to treasure his solitude, even considering avoiding the odd patrol that ventured out of the shield but there was more in this graveyard then just him and they patrols were either to arrogant or to foolish to realise the danger that they would undoubtedly place themselves in. But still… he sighed. He missed his friends, he missed them so badly sometimes…

…_Emerald eyes were focused on the phone with the intensity of an addict on a drug just out of reach. They were in a face too thin and belonged to a body nearly at the point of starving. He wasn't used to fending for himself in conditions like these, he wasn't used to being by himself and a part of his mind was still convinced that it had been a mistake and that they would phone him soon and tell him that they were sending a chopper to pick him up and bring him inside. He would spend hours sitting in that same position waiting for a call that never came only leaving to find the first edible thing that came to hand before running back inside terrified that he'd missed it. The one call that could have saved him from this wretched existence and show him that he hadn't been forgotten. When the first call came he was so excited that he'd been sent into the first of many depressions when it was only an order for him to bring all blueprints in city hall to the gate in the shield. That was it, just an order, no how are you, nothing but "Bring the blueprints from City Hall." He had of course, in a blind stupor vaguely hoping that they would let him inside but instead all the gate did was open wide enough for the rolled up papers then shut behind them. _**  
Say it for me  
Say it to me  
And I'll leave this life behind me  
Say it if it's worth saving me**  
The man dropped off the roof onto the shattered pavement below. Once the fall, over three stories would have injured him, maybe even killed him, however he'd long since learned the art of landing. He knew every back alley of the cities skeleton by heart and there wasn't anything that he couldn't find if necessary. He strolled down the streets, a Lord patrolling his border. As he moved there was a lethal grace about it, as though his muscles were liquid steel as they rippled under his skin easily visible dressed as he was in only a torn pair of jeans. The soles of his feet toughened with years of travelling over these sharp edged streets. He steps were silent as a stalking panthers and though his thoughts were far away his senses were on alert. Nothing on the streets that knew him would dare challenge the green man but habit had turned into an instinct that would not be forgotten. The dry wind blowing seaward carried with it the scents of the creatures it had passed whispering their story and it's own to his nose. The soft creaks, whistles and groans of the buildings around him told him of creatures that drifted through their halls.

He paused in the centre of the street his mind focusing once more as he heard the rap of steps where footsteps should not have been. His eyes narrowed and the emerald orbs flashed as they swept the area. Another patrol, no there hadn't been one in years. Swiftly he followed the sound back to its source, every step and movement controlled to the hair. He wove through crumbling brickwork and falling timbers silent as a shadow. Suddenly he paused and looked up at the ceiling catching a glimpse of a shadow dashing into another doorway and slowly he followed it. The thrill of the stalk rushed though his veins and he moved on after it. Carefully he made his way though the tumbled interior of the shop. Chairs were over turned and shattered and the floor was littered by the merchandise that had once filled the shelves. Nothing but him breathed in the show room so he carefully wove through the debris towards the back room searching for the person that was what it had to be. Nothing else had that two beat gait.

Slowly he eased into the back room of the store his eyes adjusting to the dark and his senses sharpening to aid him. He saw the black form against the far wall, it was darker then the darkness that surrounded it and he listened but he heard no breathing form it, no heart beat. A low growl started unconsciously in his throat as his skin began to crawl at the aura the thing gave off. Slowly the black thing turned around and he snarled lower in his chest a warning rumble that wouldn't be silenced. The things burning red eyes focused on him then widened in surprise and it took a step back as well clearly it hadn't expected to encounter another living thing. Its form seemed to flicker and shift before his eyes never the same shape never still it seemed to seethe with a restless energy. Suddenly the red eyes faded to white and a startled voice came so heart breaking familiar from this shadow without a mouth to speak just before the flicked out like a ghost. "You're alive!"

**Heaven's gates won't open up for me  
With these broken wings I'm fallin'  
And all I see is you  
These city walls ain't got no love for me  
I'm on the ledge of the eighteenth story  
And oh I scream for you  
Come please I'm callin'  
And all I need from you  
Hurry I'm fallin'**  
The man stood in his lair on the west side of town. He could have moved into any of the lush mansions that dotted the rich side of the city or any building that might have caught his fancy, even the mall if he'd felt like it. He hadn't. Occasionally he would stay in one of the abandoned houses in the city, when the mood took him or the need arose. Once the reality that he was trapped in a life sentence had settled on him and he'd given into it. Abandoning the red phone he had clung to in the early days he'd wandered the city. A crew had shown up a few days later and had given him a small brown paper wrapped package. Inside had been the magic key to the city. The dead city had been given to him. On his bitter days when he managed to see the ironic side of his situation, he told himself that he'd make a killing on the market if the people every left the safe haven and returned. Those were the good days. The bad days weren't worth mentioning or even remembering.

Instead to pass the time he'd built a house. It wasn't anything spectacular and he'd made improvements to it over the years. He'd scrounged and scavenged from across the city to build it. The original structure had been red bricks held together by his fourth attempt to figure out how to make cement. The first three attempts now served as rock hard blobs out in front of it in various stages of success. Originally it had been a square one room thing with a tin roof supported by steel beams. As the years progressed and he had more time on his hands as he'd learned how little he truly needed to eat in order to survive, which meant less searching for food, he'd altered the original design. Enlarging it and making it a round hut shape he'd redone the roof and created a small smoke hole in it cleverly sheltered and hidden in case he'd ever wanted a fire. Beams crisscrossed the ceiling under the cone shaped roof. Supporting a half loft made of three layer of plywood where a pile of blankets scavenged from various malls and houses thrown on some stolen cushions made his bed. A pair of tires hung from the ceiling suspended by yellow rope made chairs and a piece of plywood on a hinge with a fold down leg made a table if he desired one. More cushions laid along the east wall formed a sort of couch and a large wooden trunk stored his few treasured possessions. He'd added rooms and usually had at least one in progress but none of them were actually connected to the original structure. More like a separate house ten feet away. It was in an unusual location one that he'd chosen for its geographical features rather then its location in comparison to his main scavenging grounds which were nowhere close by. Some instinct had driven him to make his lair here and to hide it well which he had done as best as he could. He had others strewn about the city but this was his first and his favourite.

It was where he had fled to now, confused and wary of the strange creature that had invaded his territory. It had seemed vaguely familiar to him yet at the same time totally forign. He walked to the steel bound trunk and twisting in the combination on the lock he opened the lid and withdrew a battered photo album. The once impeccable black leather surface with the proud yellow T in the center was as sacred and worn as the man holding it. Reverently he flipped it open and ran his finger gently over each face in the photographs and other memorabilia that was tuck within the thick white sheets of paper. Every picture led to a memory in his thoughts but he wasn't interested in them he flipped through it searching for the one picture that he craved. Finally he found it.

A woman sat in a lotus position each ankle resting on opposing thigh. She was clad in a black leotard and her dark blue and black cloak hung to the ground below her. Her eyes were closed and her body relaxed head bowed forward slightly. Above her rose an ebony shadow that sucked all the light around it away creating a white outline around it. It appeared faintly bird like, a dark bird, a raven. It's hard eyes glowing white and fierce over some great distance that was beyond the mortal plain that he and the others could see. At the time he'd thought he'd been so sneaky taking a picture while his team-mate had been distracted and didn't see him. Only later did he discover that the ebony projection of his friends' soul-self had only been captured on his camera film because she had allowed him to capture it. Why he had never figured out but then, she had always enjoyed confusing him.

Could it have been? He wondered his eyes narrowed in consideration at the prospect of it. Suddenly his eyes flickered to the right as thought he could see through the thick brick walls into the night beyond it. With a decisive movement he stood and replaced the photo album in the trunk and silently shut the lid, snapping the lock back into place. He turned, his head cocked to one side as he heard that strange sound again, soft and fleeting, a sound that wasn't a part of his city, it that gave the impression of something darting from one source of cover to another. Moving too fast for the eye to follow, a blur of sound like a blur to the eye. His dark green lips drew back in a half snarl that revealed glitteringly white canines that were both too long and too sharp to be human. He turned in a half circle tracking the sound as it darted around behind him checking the exterior of the building. It stopped with him facing the single heavy vault like steel door. It had taken him days to haul the door to this place but he was most proud of it. Suddenly he didn't believe that it would be much of a barrier against what was standing on the other side of the door. He scented the air and caught a faint scent hanging in the air that drifted in through the smoke hole from the creature that had run past it. It was smoky and soft like rainfall at twilight, mysterious and sensual. His eyes narrowed, as his body tensed. Then the sound came again, this time moving away from the small hut in the middle of nowhere back towards the glittering dome on the other side of the dead city.

The man sat down, adrenaline slowly draining away and being replaced by a feeling that he couldn't explain. Almost like a sense of abandonment that he could trace back to the source. He kicked dirt over his fire killing the dancing flames and the flickering light. In the darkness he leapt easily into his loft bed and curled up on the cushions pulling the blankets over his lean frame. His body fell almost instantly asleep with the ease of long practice, his mind on the other hand continued to work and for the first time in five years he dreamed…

**_He stood on the edge of the tower once more only now the signs of battle and wear were gone. It was pristine in the way that only memories could be. Inside he could hear the sounds of life, people moving, talking living. He knew who they were but the names wouldn't come to him. He heard a car horn behind him and he jumped turning to face a city that was thriving with life and teeming with people each and everyone caught up in their own lives. He could have cried with the sweetness of it. _**

"**_Hey man what are you doing up here?" a deep voice asked and he turned to face the speaker but no one was there. flash _**

_**He was standing in a long corridor and shadows filled it. There was a movement ahead of him and he saw that it was the shadow from that day. He ran after it and it fled before him just as he was about to catch it the thing would be far ahead of him again. He leaned forward putting more speed into his sprint. Suddenly the shadowy corridor was gone and a woman stood before him, dark blue cloak drawn around her body. He skidded to a stop and as he watched the shadow that he'd chased shrank down into her pale form. He tried to back up but his feet seemed to be frozen to the floor. Slowly the woman raised her head and looked up at him, the hood of her cloak pulled over her head casting her face into shadow. The only features revealed were a pair of violet eyes that widened in surprise at the sight of him. **_

"_**It is you, you're alive-"**_

He sat up on the blankets breathing hard and fast, his heart inside his chest was pounding a mile a minute and a thin layer of sweat slicked his skin from head to toe. He leaned over his crossed legs covering his face with his calloused hands and took a few deep calming breaths as without thought a word he hadn't thought of or spoken since the day his sentence began slid unnoticed from his lips…  
**Show me what it's like  
To be the last one standing  
And teach me wrong from right  
And I'll show you what I can be  
**  
"Raven…" I sat blot upright in my bed as a low masculine voice flirted against my ear. I looked around expecting it to be Nightwing or Cyborg daring to bug me as they did on occasion. No one was there. I looked around momentarily confused and slowly swung my legs over the side of the bed a chill slithering up my spine at the touch of the cold floor on my feet. I cast a glance at the glowing blue numbers of the alarm clock on the side of my bed and felt my jaw drop as I saw the time. 9:00 am! Sending my soul-self through the barrier yesterday must have sapped more energy they I thought. I summoned my cloak from the closet and drew it around my shoulders ignoring the fact that I was dressed only in a pair of baggy silver pyjama pants and a black fitted t-shirt I left my room. There was something that I knew I needed to see by daylight with my own eyes and I didn't want to miss it.

"Hey Rae what're you doing up here?" A buff Blackman asked stepping onto the roof. He was built like a weight lifter or a professional football linebacker, both of which was a contradiction to my 5'5 lightweight dancers build. A breeze ruffled my violet hair teasing a strand to dace across my face. Impatiently I brushed it back and continued my watch. It wasn't a real breeze just as the waves that rolled ceaselessly against the shore weren't real. They were created by cunningly designed and hidden fans and a special wave maker respectively. The barrier didn't allow anything so beautifully, simply complex through. Nor was the golden sun that shone down on the two of us real either. It was filtered through the barrier to minimise UV exposure and the barrier spread the light so that there were no harsh contradictions, no need to wear sunglasses to ease the light. I'd never felt so restless against little things like them before but now they chafed on me like harness leather did on an exhausted horse.

"Hello Rae, you listening to me? I asked you why you're on the roof." Cyborg walked up beside me, his hologram flawless to my eyes. I glanced at him and gave a wry smile.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." I responded with the ease of familiarity. He draped an arm over my shoulders, and I shook my head and looked back at the glittering wall of the barrier further out over the water. Beyond it from this angle I could just make out the dilapidated form of the original tower, the home that I still longed for on many occasions.

"Try me." He tone was easy so I did.

"I was out there yesterday." I said softly pointing my chin to the ruins of the city. He looked at me one eyebrow arched.

"You know you're no supposed to do that." He told me and I nodded.

"I saw someone." His blue eyes narrowed as he looked at me puzzled, confused, but not doubting. He knew me well enough to know that I'd seen what I'd seen and I wouldn't tell him otherwise.

"Who?" he voice was soft. Suddenly my eyes caught a movement that they'd been waiting for. I held the binoculars in my hand to my eyes focusing on the distant rooftop. A smile twisted my lips and my shoulders relaxed. I'd been right I had seen him.

"Look at the tower roof, tell me what you see." I told him pushing the button on the binoculars causing them to zoom in close enough now for me to see the man and almost enough for me to see his face.

"Holy-… Is that?..." for once even Cyborg didn't have the words for what the digital zoom of his eye revealed to him.

"That's who I saw."

"It almost doesn't look like him." He murmured and I smiled again.

"Do you know anyone else with green skin?" I asked him when Cyborg answered no there was a hint of awe in his voice. Suddenly he sobered.

"That means that the rumours, about the cullings…" I looked at him for a moment.

"We can't be sure, there are two versions of the story remember, one that he wouldn't come-"

"-and one that they wouldn't let him. I know Rae but… I still have a hard time believing that he would volunteer to stay behind." I nodded as well.

"I know I know but at least we know that he's still alive now." I said softly and Cyborg nodded and sighed in agreement with me. No mater how reluctant it was.

"You're right Rae. You're right." His voice was thick with frustration.

I murmured softly to the distant figure on the roof. "I still can't believe it myself. After all these years you're alive, I just can't believe it…" I

**Say it for me  
Say it to me  
And I'll leave this life behind me  
Say it if it's worth saving me**

He was crouched on the edge of the roof as he had been sitting for the last few hours. His eyes fixed on the barrier over the water and he couldn't shake the feeling that he was looking directly into a pair of eyes. Slowly he rose stretching the muscles of his back which were only slightly stiff from holding the same crouched position. He cast one last look at the barrier glittering over the water then dove head first over the ledge. He spread his arms wide as though welcoming gravities fatal embrace. Softly as he pelted towards the shattered rock below he thought a word he'd almost forgotten whispered past his ears and at its gentle coxing he pulled out of his dive shrugging off the temptation to accept gravities final kiss.

"…Beast Boy…"  
**Hurry I'm fallin'**

A.N Well that's it review it and tell me what you think of the whole thing. Good bad or piece of crap.

**p.s** I'm currently stuck once more with writers block so if any of you out there have an idea for a one shot you might want to share let me know!


	14. The Morning After

_A.N. Sorry about taking so long I'm struggling though a stage where I can't seem to finish anything so I really do apologise. Anyway here is my latest one shot. Good luck and Good Reading. _

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Disclaimer: Don't own the Titans.

**The Morning After**

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Slowly the sun crept up over the cityscape of Jump City. Across from it on its isolated island in the Jump City Bay the many windows of the Titian Tower glowed reflecting it's light. The Tower seemed to burn for a moment then slowly the colour faded as the angle of the rapidly rising sun shifted. From the north side of the city smoke could be seen rising lazily into the clear sky of the morning. In the streets work crews were settling into what they did best, repairing whatever damage may have been caused in the night by foiled villains. Residents crept warily to their windows debating weather the streets were safe or not. Jump City was not a peaceful city the criminal syndicate here was large and the police force weak after generations of struggle against it. No matter how disgruntled the cops became however they never complained the aid of the five teenage superheroes that had taken up residence in the city. However today was a day of change, everyone could sense it Civilian or Villain everyone could sense that something drastic had changed…

In the Titians tower things were unhealthily quiet. No arguments over breakfast were happening in the kitchen and no Traditional Tammerian song of morning echoed through the halls. In the common room the mega sized T.V screen was dark and forlorn, it's game station empty. In the garage a blue and white car sat, grim still covering it from the night before, the nick in its meticulously maintained paint unfixed. No lights were on and no voices echoed in the walls.

In a narrow bed a dark haired teen sleeps trapped in restless dreams, his hair mussed and handsome features tight with the internal struggle. The covers wound tightly about his legs adding to the battle taking place deep within his exhausted mind. Out of place in the overly organised, simple room a set of clothes was trailed from the door. A black and yellow cape began it followed by a pair of green gloves a fair distance apart. A pair of boots rested against the walls in separate corners of the room and a yellow belt hung over one bed post. The teens signature fire engine red shirt was in a pile at the foot of the desk chair and the emerald leggings in a pile closer to the bed. The teen thrashes again scars vivid across is pale skinned shoulders. A mask still covers his eyes as though even in his sleep he seeks to protect one last secret…

Down the hall this scene is repeated in every team member's room. A violet uniform abandoned in a pile while its wearer curls into the fetal position under violet covers, golden skin hidden from view, only the tail end of her flaming red hair visible. In another room a half robot teen rests on a table other robots switching damaged cybernetic parts for replacements and the background hum of a generator underlying whatever sounds they might make. In the fourth room a blue cloak lays like a pool of midnight water in the middle of the floor while on a desk boots and black wrist bands keep a blood red broach and matching belt, company. Next to the bed is a crumpled pile of black fabric, the remaining part of this occupant's uniform. She is curled under her blankets shivering slightly though the room is warm. Lastly in a room that looks as though WW2 was fought through it nothing stirs. A uniform of black and purple mingles with other discarded clothing and runners in the same colour fill the bottom bunk with a pair of matching gloves lost somewhere in the mess. On the top bunk the blankets are mussed and twisted as though the sleeper tossed and turned wildly in their sleep. However though the dent in the pillow says that someone had been in the room the bed was empty.

Slowly as the sun crept higher the Titans began to stir as old habits and internal clocks dragged the reluctant teens from their slumber. Robin was the first to give in, swinging his legs over the side of the bed while he yawned and stretched. Slowly his eyes opened behind his mask and he gazed around the room blankly for a moment. Taking in the trail of abandoned clothes and the angle of the light with a bemused blankness, his mind too tired yet to function at its usual speed. Suddenly his gaze fixed on the yellow communicator on his desk and with a sound between a sign and a groan he dropped in head into his hands his eyes closed as though trying to deny the memories that assaulted him.

"Damnit!" he swore softly dragging his fingers though his hair and staring at the floor between his legs. "God Damnit!" he swore again, suddenly violent, he slammed his first against the innocent bed. He took a deep breath and bit his lip. Then with a sigh that seemed to come from his soul he dragged himself into the adjoining bathroom, not bothering to wrap a towel around his naked form.

†

When Cybrog dragged himself into the kitchen twenty minuets later Robin was sitting at the table paper in hands and forgotten cup of coffee beside him. The larger teen paused confused as to what exactly he should do or say, torn between two different loyalties. Finally seeing the hidden tension in the other boy he tried to get his throat to form the words.

"Rob, man- I- I don't know what to say." He spoke softly shifting slightly from one foot to the other.

"Don't-" Robin checked himself then spoke with more control never glancing away from the newspaper. "Just-, don't say anything right now Cy." The older teen stayed silent for a moment then nodded. He understood what it was like to need time to work something out alone. He set himself to making his usual gluttonous breakfast out of habit needing something to keep himself busy for a moment; something mudane and completely ordinary. After all, what else could you do when your existence had just been shattered?

That was the scene that Raven walked in on, having sat in her room since slightly after sunrise meditating, naked as she'd slept, in the cold light of dawn. Now nothing about her demeanour gave away the turmoil that had haunted her night, the agony that still lingered in her secret heat. Nothing… except perhaps for the shadow in her beautiful eyes, the pool of denied tears in their violet depths, these however were things that the others would notice yet none would dare to comment upon. She glanced around taking in the three empty chairs and Cyborg and Robin busy trying to bury themselves in everyday small tasks. Accepting the unspoken bargain in the air she crossed to her chair and with a though black energy encased the pot on the counter full of water and set it on its usual spot on the stove. Then she pulled her hood foreword hiding her face and flipped through a book that she'd been reading the day before, though she never knew what she was reading.

This was how things went as the forth member of the teen joined them. Their feet solidly panted on the ground for once and misery on her usually cheerful face. She looked around the room then unable to bring herself to join the others crossed to the common room and settled in a chair facing the floor to ceiling windows looking out over the bay to the city. She drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them to her in a painfully human position of vulnerability.

Raven put away her book no longer feeling the strength needed to continue her false actions and wrapped her hands around the fragile china tea cup the heat radiating off of it not even enough to penetrate her chilled fingers. With a sigh Cyborg turned off his frying pan, the bacon half cooked, as he realised that he had no appetite for anything. Stubbornly Robin continued to read though his locked jaw shook slightly from the strain of continuing his own charade. Starfire was the one who broke the silence and acknowledged the things that the others had been trying to ignore.

"Has anyone seen friend Beast Boy?" she didn't look at the others as she spoke instead her gaze was focused out the window watching as a pair of gulls twirled unaware of the conflict happening inside the tower.

"Starfire-" Robin began but for one of the few times the Tammerain Princess interrupted him with her own personal logic and a regal silencing gesture.

"I do not wish to hear of it now friend Robin. I do not want to hear or speak of the events last night. I merely wish to have knowledge of the location of our friend." Raven and Cyborg looked at each other, each dealing with their own problems yet understanding the significance of these next few hours for the future of the team. Their looks traded understanding and agreement at Raven's slight nod of acknowledgement Cyborg spoke.

"Raven will go see if she can find him." Raven rose and left the common room. When she was gone Cyborg turned to Robin and Starfire all patience prepared to try and help both of them deal with what might come.

†

The sun was bright on the roof, glinting off the water with a blinding determination. The pool on the roof was abandoned, the water lapping softly against the edge the only life within it. The basket-ball and volleyball courts were abandoned and ghost like, haunted by the silence of the wind that swirled across them. On the very edge of the tower, sitting in the shrinking shadow of one of the giant ventilation system outlets sat the missing titan. His traditionally short cropped green hair only a shade darker then his skin was changed. Now it hung to his shoulders the top green while the underside was a dark midnight it was the same colouring that it had assumed as the mane of the Beast. He wasn't dressed in his traditional uniform now, instead he was clad in a pair of tattered blue jeans and a white undershirt stained from wear. His arms were bare and now Raven could see the three parallel slashes across the back of his forearms another marking that had appeared on the beast. Instead of his usual gloves he wore a pair of silver cloth gloves the one on his left hand removed. His face was solemn and resigned, to emotions that were never seen on him. He was looking at the back of his left hand at something that Raven couldn't see. She paused where she was about six feet back from him waiting for him to acknowledge her presence. He tilted his head to the side and looked across the waters to the glittering city. The wind shifted tossing his hair in front of his face from behind him. She watched his eyes close as he tilted his head at a slightly different angle so that more of the wind blew past his nose. Scenting the air? She wondered.

"Waiting for something Raven?" he asked his voice soft but with her empathic powers she could sense the veiled bitterness swirling around him. She walked up to him her steps soft and sure not revealing any of the hesitation that shifted in her thoughts. She sat down beside him, not near him but then she never had before. As she had approached he'd pulled the glove back down over his left hand hiding whatever it was that he'd been studying.

"Nothing in particular." Raven spoke softly looking out over the water to the open ocean. "Figured you might be ready for some company by now." The green skinned teen gave a derisive sound and looked away from her.

"How much they have to pay you to come up here." Raven closed her eyes feeling not only his own pain but a sharp stab of her own as well at his words.

"What do you want me to say Beast Boy? That I can't stand the sight of you now after what happened? That you're a monster? I can't. You want to fight because you're hurting and I don't want to fight with you." Raven looked over at him her eyes serious and empathic. Beast Boy was silent the only sound was a soft rustle as he drew his knees up to his chest.

"Maybe I want you to. Maybe I'm sick and tired of not being taken seriously and maybe, just once, I can't find anything to laugh about." There was misery in his emerald eyes now sadness in his face.

"No matter what you were once, the future is in your own hands and I'll stand with you." She looked back out to sea, "after all someone once told me that you're never alone." Beside her the changeling gave a rude laugh.

"What the hell did he know." Raven closed her eyes at a loss for what to do to help the shape-shifter. He was still hurting from what had happened the night before, the shock, the pain, the terror and mistrust that had resulted from a few careless words.

"Beast Boy… don't act like this. We all have things that we've done we're not proud of they don't have to affect what you have today." She said trying to reason with him and she sensed him shake his head and frustrated anger mix in with the bitterness of his aura.

"You don't get it. I'm not ashamed Raven. Hell, some of my best memories are of when I was with the Children of Eternity. Yes I was an assassin but it wasn't something that I needed to be ashamed of. I was with people for the first time in my life that didn't look at me as though I was anything special. I fix in. I wasn't trapped on the fringes of feakdom." Raven looked over at him as he pulled the gloves off his hands revealing his hands. A bright pick scar went across his left hand that looked suspiciously like a bite mark. He half curled his fingers then snapped them straight. Half inch claws erupted from them, gleaming a wicked and cruel black. "I'm a bloody predator. My DNA may have once been human but it's not anymore. I'm the top damn predator on the damn plant!" he curled then snapped his fingers once more and the claws disappeared. "And killing is what I do. It's hard wired into my system. Now everyone else has to know it to." He pressed his face into his knees, "Damn." It was a heartfelt curse and slowly Raven realised that all the problems had do with the fact that he didn't know how the rest of the team would react to this knowledge.

"So you're not really a vegetarian?" she asked playing dumb. The boy gave a half laugh and turned his head to look at her keeping it resting on his knees.

"Depends how you look at it. I stay away from meats because it helps me keep control of myself. However my reactions and skills and, well, everything, are better when I eat meat. It's not an easy line to balance on." Raven nodded and looked over at him the sun glancing across her violet hair and porcelain skin.

"If it helps any Beast Boy, my opinion of you hasn't changed. You're still my friend, after all. I was supposed to destroy the world remember?" Beast Boy gave weak smile then looked back out across the water.

"I'm not sure if that's good or not but thanks anyway it's nice to know that." Raven bit her lip unsure what she could say to help him. He pulled his gloves back on then rested his chin on his knees watching life in the city continue as though nothing had happened.

"Beast Boy, I you going to go back to the Children of Eternity like that girl asked you to?" At Raven's hesitant voice the shape shifter sighed deeply before he answered.

"I don't know Raven. I don't know." Raven bit her lip again, he didn't see it, then rose and turning on her heel walked away leaving him on the roof, there was nothing left to say, and she didn't want him to see her heart break.

Raven sat in her typical spot in the common room watching over the top of her book the interactions of the other three present. Robin and Cyborg were deep into a racing game and Starfire sat next to them on the couch alternating cheering between the two of them. The scene looked so normal that it hurt. Someone watching would almost think that nothing was wrong with them however Raven could tell. Cyborg was distracted, his gaze straying periodically to the entrance to the common room and his car was crashing far more often then usual for him. Robin was throwing himself into the game with an almost desperate energy. However that didn't stop him from glancing over at the clock slowly marking time over the kitchen stove across the room. He wasn't the only one keeping a close agonizing watch of the minuet hand. The time between each movement seemed to drag on indefinitely. Each pause was agony.

Raven watched it, the tall red heads words echoing through her mind. "_I'll come by at seven tomorrow night. I need to know your decision then."_ The agony came from not knowing what decision her green team-mate would make. Slowly the clock ticked again 6:55. Raven's knuckles tightened on the book cover and Cyborg crashed again. Starfire cast a glance over at Robin worry showing through the bright green of her eyes. 6:56 the computer monitors behind Raven suddenly cracked as Raven's powers snapped, for a moment revealing the half-demon's internal turmoil. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes chanting under her breath. She could hear the game sound-effects of tires squealing and glass shattering all under the roar of supped up engines. She took another deep breath but couldn't stop one eye from cracking open at looking at the clock. 6:58. She closed her eyes again feeling tension curling up in her stomach. She let out another deep breath this one shaky as she struggled to keep herself under control. Suddenly the sounds of the game stopped and Raven opened her eyes and looked at the clock. 6:59. the second hand balanced on the brink for a moment then plunged. 7:00. Raven felt her breath catch then suddenly the clock exploded. Quickly Raven jumped to her feet and dashed from the common room needing the privacy of her own quarters.

She paced back and forth across her room watching everything but the clock on her desk. Books flew off her shelf as she passed and every time on the way back she waved a hand and sent them all back to their places only for them to fall once more as she passed by again. 7:10. She had felt the red head's presence leave the tower but as usual she couldn't sense Beast Boy. Had he left had he stayed? The question was killing her. Finally in a last desperate attempt to save the tower from herself she downed a sleeping pill and curled up under the covers swiftly shivering as dreams settled around her.

"_Titan's go!" at Robin's command the team dove into battle. Each fighting a member of the Hive, holding their own for a moment before getting thrown away to the side. Raven turned to Beast Boy to warn him of Mammoth's latest charge just in time to feel something strike her from behind. Beast Boy was looking at her an un-nameable emotion on his face then he turned his gaze from her to her attacker. His expression hardening and his eyes beginning to gleam with a feral gold light…_

… _Beast Boy kneeled over a fallen form, blood splattered up the forearms of his suit and his body heavy with the effort. A blur of faces whirled around him Robin, Starfire, Robin everyone shocked and disbelieving of the death that they had just witnessed.- _

_-A tall slender Red head stepped out of the shadows talking to Beast Boy as he stayed back well away from the team watching them warily now. Cuts covered his own form but he hung back not even coming over for healing. The red head offering for him to come back to the Children of Eternity. Robin suddenly yelling at the younger boy for not telling them that he was an assassin-_

_-"I don't know Raven, I don't know." Beast Boy shaking his head in the sunlight- The red-head appeared again, standing next to an open door head bent close to Beast Boy's. Then the door swung open and the two of them walked into the white light swiftly enveloped silhouettes…_

Raven sat bolt upright a gasp ripping out of her throat. Sweat dripping off her skin from the exertion the dream had placed on her. Without thinking she phased out of her room onto the roof. The cold night air caused her to shiver but she barely noticed the cold, the forces of the dream still clouding her thoughts and actions. She walked over to the edge of the tower looking out through the pitch darkness towards the city glowing with a yellow light. She rubbed her arms cold but not from the temperature.

"I lied," she whispered as she looked over the city convinced now that her dream had been true, that Beast Boy was gone. "I lied this morning, you're more then a friend. And it was a good opinion that changed for the better." She whispered into the swift touch of the night wind.

"Nice to know Rae Rae." A voice spoke from behind her and Raven whipped around her gaze zeroing in on the rueful expression on the changeling's face. They stood there for a moment looking at each other awkwardly for a moment then suddenly Raven grabbed her in one of her rare hugs and he felt her shaking and rubbed his hand up her back soothingly for a hurt that he didn't know the source of...

_The redhead stood next to the waiting door head bent talking to the green skinned teen. Suddenly she threw back her head and laughed her and laughed then with a big smile motioned for him to get out of here. She leaned against her own door, closed now. Watching as he joined another shadowy figure and they vanished into the darkness…_

In her sleep Raven let out a sigh as she finally understood the meaning of the dream and then with a pleased sound cuddled into the warmth of the teen sprawled in her bed with her, suddenly feeling warm.

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_A.N._ (EEERR, that was a lot of discription... anyway)_Well what do you think? If there are any errors I'm sorry but I didn't really get a great chance to proof-read this to well. Oh yeah did it make any sense at all? Let me know if you did or didn't get it. Well come on, Review. Plleeeaaasseee!_

_P.S. By the way I've got a series of poems and I can't decide it I should publish them separately or under this title. What should I do? _


	15. Without a word

_Without a word_

**Disclaimer: Don't own the Teen Titians. Don't even own the pants I'm wearing right now.**

_So much can be said with words…_

I felt the words I'd just read fall away from my grasp as he walked in. I couldn't see him, he couldn't see me, yet from the moment he entered the room we knew. However he didn't even stumble at the recognition, at least not in a way any of the others would have noticed. I knew without seeing that the smile on his face wouldn't falter, the words he'd been about to announce would still come forth. The others believed that my lack of expression was a denial of my emotions, it's true, however, _he_ was as skilled at hiding what he felt as me. The only difference was that his mask was a smile and a good cheer that I knew he didn't feel. I tune out his voice as he begins to talk to Cyborg and begin at the top of the page again struggling to remember the plot I'd previously been so engrossed in.

Cyborg's gone now, wandered off to the garage to continue his endless modifications to the T-car. Starfire has managed to "talk" Robin into taking her to the carnival down at the beach. She has such a fascination with the fireworks she drags him there as often as she can. He doesn't mind, he isn't bored with them because he rarely watches them for more then a few seconds. He spends the Farris Wheel ride watching her. She knows this but she doesn't mind the attention. But back to the point everyone has gone, except him.

He's sitting on the couch watching the TV, not paying any attention to it but using it instead as an excuse to stay here. Why? Stupid question, I know why. He's waiting, like he always does, for me to take my leave. I'm not sure when this strange relationship the two of us have began but I'll never ask. It's an unspoken agreement that neither of us will mention it. He's sort of become my protector. Not that I need one, it's not as simple as that. During the heat of battle he'll surrender his own defence to come to mine. I can't count the number of times he's come from out of nowhere and pushed me out of harm's way. The bruises he's received for taking a hit that was destined for me. The tongue lashings from Robin for not being where he was supposed to and doing what he was told. That's all it was in the beginning I think, though I'm not sure where the he stopped watching my back in a battle and just began watching my back.

After the Malichor incident he was the only one who offered comfort, he didn't know my wounds but he offered everything I needed to heal them. When the black magic I'd unknowingly used got out of control it wasn't to the little girl in my grip that he turned but rather to me. Concern for me was the first thing that came to his mind. It is sweet really. Comforting even, to know that all I have to do was ask without asking and he'd be there to be whatever I need him to be. Yet in the back of my mind it worries me. The sure knowledge that for me there are no lines to be crossed. To understand that in his mind his life is a willingly offered substitute for mine.

Subtly I glance over the edge of my book to study him unwatched. His aura burns brightly to my eyes, brighter then any other that I have seen before. It was dark at times, speaking of pain past and present yet it burns with such life. The illumination given off by his life force, his life energies is one that always boggles my mind. I belatedly see the emerald glint of his eye and realise that he's been watching me out of the corner of his eye the whole time. Behind my book my lips twitch in self amusement, what did I expect, with his animal instincts and senses her could probably hear my heartbeat and though I knew he couldn't read aura's he senses and instinct gave him almost an equal level of insight.

What do you see? I wonder as our gazes hold. Why do you do this for me, to me? Just what are your motives? What are the secrets that gather in your eyes whenever you think no one is watching. His emerald eyes say nothing yet everything. The silence around us hums with words and answers yet… he gives a small smile and looks back at the TV. He doesn't know, not consciously at least. His answer seems to say. As for what he sees… I stand up and teleport to my bedroom. In the silence of the tower I can hear the murmur of the TV die and a few moments later the whisper of his own door as it slides open and closed behind him.

As I change for the night I spare a glance at my reflection in the vanity mirror. Looking out at me I see a girl clad in darkness, her violet eyes are full of questions without answers and I know. As I curl up under the blankets the thought, the answer to my question, slips unbidden into my half dreaming mind. **_I see you…_**

… _but so much more understood without._

**A.N. – Wahoo! Finally a new chapter! I finally slipped this one past my writer's block. Yeah! Read and Review folks let me know that there's still life out there!**


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